{"id":14927,"date":"2025-07-27T06:08:34","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T06:08:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=14927"},"modified":"2025-07-27T06:08:34","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T06:08:34","slug":"chamber-decries-hurdles-to-trade-with-kabul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=14927","title":{"rendered":"Chamber decries hurdles to trade with Kabul"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>The Pakistan-Afghanistan Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PAJCCI), led by Chairman Muhammad Zubair Motiwala, has welcomed the signing of a preferential trade agreement (PTA) between the two countries earlier this week.<\/p>\n<p>Formalised by Pakistan&#8217;s Commerce Secretary Jawad Paul and Afghanistan&#8217;s Deputy Minister of Industry and Commerce Mullah Ahmadullah Zahid, this agreement reduces tariffs on key agricultural commodities such as Afghanistan&#8217;s grapes, pomegranates, apples and tomatoes and Pakistani mangoes, oranges, bananas and potatoes from over 60% to 27%, with a special 22% rate for tomatoes and potatoes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;PAJCCI acknowledges this progress, which builds on discussions held in a meeting of the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) on December 17, 2024. This milestone reflects our longstanding demands, pursued through consistent efforts and reinforced during the SIFC meeting, marking a significant step towards enhancing trade,&#8221; the chamber said in a statement on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the encouraging step, PAJCCI President Junaid Makda remained concerned about persistent challenges hindering bilateral and transit trade, which declined from $2.5 billion at its peak to $1.2 billion in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As outlined in our recent letter to Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, these issues include the lack of a consistent, long-term trade policy from the Ministry of Commerce and the State Bank of Pakistan, creating uncertainty among traders and discouraging investment,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Payment disputes, driven by banking inefficiencies, have led to undue pressure from the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on legitimate businesses, which impacted traders&#8217; confidence. Temporary Electronic Import Form waivers, without a permanent system, complicate trade planning while delays in visa issuance for Afghan businessmen are highly discouraging, and streamlining the process could foster greater economic collaboration, the chamber said.<\/p>\n<p>The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government&#8217;s infrastructure development cess, though reduced to 1%, continues to burden transit trade, which is contrary to international commitments and diverts some trade to routes like Chahbahar, Iran.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Pakistan-Afghanistan Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PAJCCI), led by Chairman Muhammad Zubair Motiwala, has welcomed the signing of a preferential trade agreement (PTA) between the two countries earlier this week. Formalised by Pakistan&#8217;s Commerce Secretary Jawad Paul and Afghanistan&#8217;s Deputy Minister of Industry and Commerce Mullah Ahmadullah Zahid, this agreement reduces tariffs on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14927\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}