Efforts on to boost trade ties with Iran: Khurram Dastgir

Minister for Commerce, Engineer Khurram Dastgir has said that trade infrastructure on Pakistan-Iran border was being upgraded in a bid to boost bilateral trade ties. "After lifting of international sanctions on Iran, good progress in trade relations with Iran is going on", the minister said adding, in this connection a third trade synonymsding border post with Iran has also been made functional which would help increasing the local trade activities. Addressing a seminar titled "regional trade and regional coordination" here, Khurram Dastgir Khan said the government had initiated a number of projects regarding regional trade, investment and regional coordination which would change the fate of the country.

He said that Pakistan was also negotiating with the Western countries to take advantage of the strategic geographic presence of Pakistan which is offering a huge trade and investment opportunities. He informed that initial work on bilateral trade agreements with Afghanistan and Central Asian States had been started.

The minister said that Pakistan had already fulfilled the demand of Afghanistan to exempt the checking of goods on its sea ports coming from Afghanistan and currently more than 90 percent cargo was being cleared from the ports within merely a couple of days due to which the transit trade from Afghanistan through Karachi was increasing.