PAJCCI's recommendations sought before delegation's expected visit to Kabul

KARACHI: In line with a series of meetings held by the Ministry of Commerce on Afghanistan-Pakistan bilateral trade as well as transit trade, the Pakistan-Afghanistan Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PAJCCI) has been asked to give its recommendations on behalf of the private sector before an expected visit to Kabul by a government delegation at the end of this month.

It was appreciated that on PAJCCI's request, COVID-19-oriented SOPs have been abolished at the borders recently.

The regime has been relaxed worldwide, keeping in view the declining number of cases. The ministry of interior also discontinued the dual-driver requirement and cabin disinfection of inbound trucks on immediate basis.

This has been welcomed. However, the Chairman of PAJCCI, Zubair Motiwala, said that the strike at the Chaman border and the single-gate operation at the Torkham border had been further aggravated by unavailability of trackers. He said these issues needed to be resolved immediately to eliminate the backlog.

He said that despite several deliberations, the matter of trackers still remained unresolved, and it had been increasing the cost of doing business. Hence an immediate intervention was required by curbing the monopoly of a single organization issuing the trackers.

In reference to comments on draft APTTA and PTA submitted by Afghanistan, the PAJCCI conducted several sessions of the stakeholders' across Pakistan and compiled a comprehensive proposal which was submitted to the Ministry of Commerce as an instrumental document illustrating desires of the private sector of Pakistan.

The document also highlighted challenges faced by Pakistani businesses while conducting transit trade to Central Asia via Afghanistan, which also needed to be negotiated during the expected joint meeting of high officials.

It is pertinent to note that import duties on kinnos transited to Uzbekistan via Afghanistan were the highest in the world. This anomaly has a detrimental effect.

Pakistan should have proper bilateral agreements with respective Central Asian countries to reap benefits, and a reciprocal supportive duty regime may be put in place between Pakistan and Afghanistan for both bilateral and transit landscape.

While discussing the draft on preferential trade agreement submitted by Afghanistan seeking extraordinary preferential treatment to be extended to Afghanistan, the Secretary of PAJCCI, Faiza Zubair, said that on the basis of the stakeholders' feedback, if Pakistan were to extend such an exceptional treatment to Afghanistan then it should also in turn receive at least regional preference in terms of duties and treatment in contrast to India and Iran.

The access to Central Asia should also be facilitated and joint mechanisms may be developed to realize valuable propositions across border.

The secretary of PAJCCI also emphasized the fact that due to border closure and exhaustive quarantine procedures during COVID-19 (especially for the period from 25th of March to 30th of April), the movement was delayed and attracted extensive demurrage and detention charges, even though it was a force majeure.

In view of the situation, the PAJCCI persistently followed up on matters of waiver/refund of detention/demurrage charges where applicable to safeguard the importers from incurring extensive losses due to border closure and delayed release amid COVID-19, but the matter is still up in the air.

In a similar situation in 2017 where such an extension was not granted, ill feelings were created between the two countries due to which other countries gained prospective opportunities, and Pakistan was left at the losing end. Hence, this should not be repeated.

Additionally, it was identified that waivers by these international shipping lines have been extended in India and Dubai but not in Pakistan.

Faiza here added that during discussions with the shipping companies over the matter just mentioned, it was pointed out that the benefit was extended to the customers by the shipping lines in reciprocity to the governments' initiative of waiving terminal and port charges on these shipping lines in India and Dubai whereas in Pakistan despite several requests and keeping in view congestion at terminals, the shipping lines were not granted any favour.

The ministry of commerce said that this matter was of high importance and was being keenly followed up, and the ministry of maritime affairs was supposed to move its summary this week for the cabinet's approval.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020