ISLAMABAD, DEC 09 (DNA) – Special Representative for Afghanistan Mohammad Sadiq said on Wednesday that another Afghan transit trade bulk cargo ship carrying 22,000 tons of fertilizer was offloaded at Gwadar.

Pakistan allowed the Afghan transit trade from Gwadar port in Balochistan province in October last year.

“Imports of transit goods through bulk cargo significantly reduce the cost of doing business for Afghan traders. Let trade diplomacy lead for prosperity of our two peoples,” Sadiq tweeted.

Afghan traders use Karachi and Qasim ports  for their transit trade, but the Gwadar port is an additional facility which is closer to Afghanistan, and moreover, it 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 already plying through Torkham, a major Pakistani crossing into Afghanistan, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Pakistan and landlocked Afghanistan had 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 is ready to handle bulk cargos to and from Afghanistan. The bulk cargoes imported at Gwadar port for onward transit to Afghanistan are now transported in containers after stuffing/loading the same into containers of international specifications, according to the notification issued by the Ministry of Commerce and Textile last year.

Afghan traders will have the facility of transshipment and transit through Gwadar port that will give a boost to their trade activities and quick clearance of their goods. = DNA

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