ISLAMABAD, Dec 10 (NNN-APP) – Pakistan’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, Mohammad Sadiq, said, an Afghan transit trade bulk cargo ship, carrying 22,000 tonnes of fertiliser was offloaded at Gwadar, in south-west Pakistan’s Balochistan province.
“Imports of transit goods through bulk cargo, significantly reduce the cost of doing business for Afghan traders. Let trade diplomacy lead for the prosperity of our two peoples,” Sadiq tweeted. Pakistan allowed Afghan transit trade at Gwadar port, last year.
Afghan traders usually use two Pakistani ports, namely Karachi and Qasim, in southern Sindh province, for their transit trade, but the Gwadar port is an additional facility that is closer to Afghanistan and would give quick clearance of their goods.
Gwadar is the shortest distance in the region for Afghan transit goods, from any seaport to Afghan cities, including Afghanistan’s capital Kabul and southern Kandahar. The functioning of Gwadar for Afghan transit trade would bring down the costs of imports and therefore the cost of living in Afghanistan.
More than 60 percent of Afghan transit trade is plying through Torkham, a major Pakistani crossing into Afghanistan, in northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Pakistan and landlocked Afghanistan signed a transit trade agreement in 1965 and revised in 2010, which calls for better facilitation in the movement of goods between the two countries.
The trade-related infrastructure at Gwadar port, under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is ready to handle bulk cargo to and from Afghanistan.– NNN-APP
