Business

Transit trade: Pakistan to send first consignment next month

Trade coordination authority, arbitration tribunals to be set up to mediate and solve any possible conflicts.

Irshad Ansari January 19, 2011

ISLAMABAD: The new Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement will be formally implemented on February 12, when the first Pakistani truck will leave for Central Asian states carrying rice or oranges through Afghanistan.

Senior officials of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) told The Express Tribune that the implementation of the agreement will reduce smuggling and misuse of transit trade. They said that Afghan trucks carrying goods under the transit trade arrangement will start depositing guarantee money from the same day. Officials of the ministry of commerce asserted that access to Central Asian states will increase the volume of exports to these countries by $1 billion.

They also said the first truck will enter Afghanistan through the Torkham border on February 12 as it was mandatory for the execution of the agreement to take place within 30 days of diplomatic exchange of the instrument of ratification between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

According to the authorities in the ministry of commerce, a ceremony marking the inauguration of the new transit trade agreement has been proposed by Afghan authorities but Pakistan has not yet made a decision on it.

To ensure effectiveness and proper implementation of the agreement, the Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Coordination Authority (APTTCA) is being set up. In addition to that, arbitration tribunals will be established to mediate and solve any possible conflicts between the two countries.

Ministry of commerce officials added that the agreement will be for a period of five years which will automatically be extended for another five years on completion of the first term.

They said that if either country had a complaint regarding smuggling, it would take it up with the APTTCA along with facts and figures of the loss inflicted to the economy. The authority would then convene a meeting of officials of both the countries for reaching a consensus decision in order to compensate the complainant within three months of the receipt of the complaint.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 19^th, 2011.