Cabinet approves Afghan transit trade agreement
By Ahmad Hassan
Thursday, 07 Oct, 2010
Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Qamar Zaman Kaira briefs to the media persons after Cabinet meeting at Prime Minister Secretariat on Wednesday. Photo by APP
ISLAMABAD: The federal cabinet approved a reformed Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement on Wednesday to allow Afghan trucks to carry export goods to the Wagah border for onward dispatch to India.
Under the old agreement, the Afghan trucks were allowed to carry goods only to the Pak-Afghan border at Torkham.
Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira told reporters after a meeting of the cabinet, presided over by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, that the APTTA was an improved form of the treaty originally signed by the two countries in 1965.
Pakistan and Afghanistan had finalised the new agreement on July 19 this year in the presence of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The move invited a public outburst and critics said it was done under US dictation for the benefit of India. Under the new agreement, Afghan trucks will be allowed to carry goods to the Wagah border, but they will not be allowed to carry Indian goods to Afghanistan. In return, Pakistani trucks will be allowed to go through Afghanistan to central Asia, Iran and Turkey.
The agreement was thus seen by analysts as failure of the US initiative which was meant to provide India a land route through Pakistan to Afghanistan.
Spearheaded by the United States, the two countries had signed a memorandum of understanding last year and were to sign before Dec 31 last year a revised trade agreement allowing Afghanistan-Pakistan-India trade through land route.
But the question of allowing the land transit facility to India evoked a strong reaction in Pakistan because the issue covered bilateral trade. As a result, the deadline was missed.
Afghan goods will be allowed to transit through Pakistan only in sealed containers having tracking devices and goods will be re-examined and certified while leaving the border at Torkham. The agreement also makes bank guarantee to the tune of customs duty essential for Afghan importers and exporters to check smuggling or misuse of the facility.
The APTTA was prepared after seven rounds of talks and allaying the reservations expressed by the ministry of defence and other stakeholders.
Mr Kaira said the cabinet did not discuss the suspension of Nato supplies, but took serious notice of charges of smuggling through various means, including Nato containers.
The prime minister asked the interior ministry to take measures to curb smuggling. The Federal Board of Revenue was asked to review tariff on goods in order to discourage smuggling.
The cabinet reviewed the performance of the narcotics control division, Board of Investment and the commerce division.
It was informed that 85 per cent of its decisions relating to the divisions had been implemented.
The cabinet gave an ex-post facto approval to the signing of a financing framework agreement with the French Development Agency under multi-trance financial facility Pak Energy Efficiency Investment Programme.
Under the programme, $980 million will be spent on replacing 30 million bulbs with energy savers and on replacement of old power generators and industrial machinery to save 1,100MW of electricity.
The cabinet also approved a proposal for granting autonomous status to the Pakistan Housing Authority to overcome the shortage of houses.
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