Pakistan, Afghanistan to boost trade with fresh APTT Agreement

ISLAMABAD: In a major development, Islamabad and Kabul have decided to re-negotiate the Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA) after a lapse of five years as the APTTA was previously signed between both sides in Washington in October 2010.
On the demand of Kabul, both sides decided that the fresh negotiation on transit agreement would be held during the upcoming meeting of Afghanistan Pakistan Transit Trade Coordination Authority (APTTCA) scheduled to be held in Kabul in March 2016.
However, both the countries remained stuck up to their traditional stance for providing access to each other up to South Asia and Central Asia as Islamabad refused to allow access through the Wagah border up to India while Kabul seemed reluctant to provide access to the Central Asian Republics (CARs) via Afghanistan.
According to the minutes duly signed by Pakistan’s Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and Afghan Minister Akleel Hakimi after the 10th session of the Joint Economic Commission (JEC) recently held in Islamabad, Afghanistan’s technical team raised the issue of re-negotiation on bilateral transit agreement and argued that the existing arrangement allowed concerned parties to seek re-negotiation on it after a lapse of five years.
They stated that the last APTTA was signed between the two sides in 2010. The APTTA agreement states, “It shall remain in force for five years from the date it comes into force.” The APTTA illustrates that this agreement shall automatically be renewed for a further period of five years thereafter subject to such modification as may be agreed upon unless terminated by either contracting party.
Pakistani officials took the stance that the next APTTCA meeting going to be held in March 2016 would be the appropriate forum for raising this issue. After a lot of debate, it was decided that this issue would be discussed in the next meeting in Kabul.
The implementation on trilateral transit agreement also became a bone of contention as Kabul authorities demanded access of trucks up to India through the Wagah border. The Pakistani side argued that they signed the trilateral transit agreement with the understanding that they would not allow access up to India through the Wagah border.
The JEC minutes state that the Pakistani side asked Kabul to identify the place for establishing the Free Economic Zone which would be established in which would be established in Afghanistan. The Afghan authorities replied that the site identified for the Free Economic Zone had unfortunately fallen into the hands of the Taliban so the next site would be identified before holding of joint business forum before March 2016 at Kabul.
Pakistan desires inclusion of Tajikistan in the APTTA plus after lapse of this existing agreement but Afghanistan seemed reluctant. In the wake of signing the APTTA between Afghanistan and Pakistan in the last five years, the commercial trade (transit and bilateral trade) and non-commercial (Nato related trade) showed fluctuating trends as in the fiscal year 2009-10 the total trade stood at $3.332 billion with the share of commercial trade of $2.157 billion and non-commercial trade $1.165 billion.
In the fiscal year 2010-11, the commercial trade stood at $1.871 billion and non-commercial trade just at $11.65 million. The commercial trade stood at $1.256 billion in 2011-12 and non-commercial trade $525 million, $1.319 billion commercial trade and non-commercial $564 million in 2012-13 and $2.202 billion commercial trade and $688 million non-commercial trade in 2013-14.
“The number of containers are reducing during the current fiscal year but in terms of value the trade between the two countries is increasing and will be standing at over $2 billion during the current fiscal year,” one of the top official sources confirmed to The News on Wednesday.
Both sides are working on the prospects of export-led investment flows from Pakistan to Afghanistan and the volume of bilateral trade will be doubled in the next two years.