Trade — the missing link

Pakistan-Afghanistan Joint Economic commission achieved almost nothing in terms of cross-border trade agreements

The countries of the region that Pakistan is a part of have a historical link — The Silk Road. Like the proposed China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, it was never a single carriageway, more a network of trade and cultural transmission routes. It ran from east to west for 10,000km and was a significant factor in the development of the civilisations of China and the Indian subcontinent, Persia and the European states. Silk may have been the trigger that ‘grew’ the Silk Route, but it was trade in the wider sense that gave it motive power. The lessons and examples of our collective historical pasts ought to be in the minds of those currently engaged in trade talks between Pakistan and Afghanistan, which are stumbling against the innumerable tensions and disagreements that have grown in the post-colonial world.

The Tenth session of the Pakistan-Afghanistan Joint Economic commission has just wrapped up in Islamabad, having achieved almost nothing in terms of cross-border trade agreements. A common distrust and some very real fears about security, not least the movement of weapons and people engaged in terrorism, lies at the root of the failure to agree. Kabul wants access to New Delhi via Wagah, which was denied by Pakistan. Pakistan wants access across the Tajikistan border, denied by Afghanistan. The benefits of a more relaxed trading relationship to all the countries directly or peripherally engaged, is blindingly obvious. There is a win-win on the table that nobody is picking up. It is accepted that there are inherent risks attached to open borders and free trade agreements as the European Union is currently experiencing — but risks have to be taken if deadlocks and bottlenecks are to be broken or bypassed. Pakistan and Afghanistan are once again locked in a sterile circle of mutual discord that serves neither well. There are opportunities to prosper and for that prosperity to benefit the people of both countries and not only those directly involved in trade. There can be no recreation of The Silk Road of old, but a modern iteration is well within our collective grasp — but only if we really want it.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 26^th,  2015.

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