Officials underline need to increase trade with Afghanistan

AMRITSAR: A high-level virtual meeting was held on Wednesday with an aim to increase the trade between India and Afghanistan via the integrated check post (ICP), Attari.

Organised by the Land Port Authority of India (LPAI), the meeting was attended the officials of the customs, immigration, Border Security Force (BSF), Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC), and some prominent importers and exporters. According to an official who was part of the meeting, traders and LPAI officials were of the view that Pakistan government needs to be coaxed to allow transportation of goods to Afghanistan via the land route. Currently, Pakistan has allowed only Afghanistan to send goods to India via the ICP. The Pakistan government had barred India to export goods to Afghanistan via land route in August 2019, after abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Pakistan government had also stopped trade with India. Before this, India had imposed 200% duty on all items being imported from Pakistan in the wake of the Pulwama terror attack in which 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel had lost their lives, in February 2019.

“It was a healthy discussion and the report of this will be sent to the central government for further action,” said a senior official. “Most of the exporters can’t send goods to Afghanistan by air and sea due to heavy freight charges. If the land route is open, the trade with Afghanistan will increase manifold. If land route is open, Indian exporters can send their goods not only to Afghanistan but also to Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Rusia.”

The customs officials raised the demand for a bigger testing lab at the ICP. Currently, the testing lab, used for testing imported goods, is small and it takes several hours to clear the traders’ goods.