ADVISOR to Prime Minister on Commerce Abdul Razak Dawood has declared that Pakistan was focusing on leveraging its geo-economic location to transform into a trade and transit hub for goods destined to Afghanistan and Central Asian Re-publics. In a tweet message he said trade must be based on secure, open, consistent, reliable and legal movement of goods at the Afghan border along with enhanced connectivity with Afghanistan and CARs.
Despite challenges and difficulties, the policies being pursued by the Advisor have started paying dividends as is con-firmed by a record increase in exports in December 2020. The figures show Pakistan’s exports for the month of December 2020 grew by 18.3 percent to $ 2.357 billion as compared to $ 1.993 billion in December 2019, an increase of $ 364 million over December 2019. This reflects the resilience of the economy of Pakistan and is a vindication of the government’s policy to keep the wheels of economy running during COVID-19 pandemic. As for legal trade with Afghanistan and Central Asian Republics is concerned, this can increase significantly if rampant smuggling is curbed, logistics are improved, steps are taken for expeditious development of Gwadar Port and its optimum use by CARs and Afghanistan, and durable peace returns to Afghanistan. Though there are security issues involved, analysts point out that high transit and transportation costs need to be brought down through competition. It is hoped that the objective can be achieved once work on a highly ambitious border management project completes, which would help keep an effective check on illegal movement and illegal trade besides taking care of security aspects. We hope the Advisor would go deep into the causes of a sharp reduction in bilateral trade with Afghanistan which came down from $3 to $1 billion with reports that the transit trade is shifting to other countries that offer competitive rates.
