Seventy percent of Afghan transit trade goods have been diverted to Iranian seaports due to lack of action by the Pakistan Railways, a business leader said.
Ziaul Haq Sarhadi, chairman of the Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Railways/Dry Port Standing Committee, said the trade diversion was inflicting huge losses on Pakistan.
Sarhadi said: “It is because of the lack of actions by the Pakistan Railways that 70 percent of the goods under the Afghan transit trade have been diverted to Bander Abbas and Chabahar seaports in Iran.”
The Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement had not been reviewed in the last eight years, said Sarhadi, who has also served as senior vice-president of the Pak-Afghan Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
At a meeting with railway officials, he said Pakistan could earn a lot of revenue if it paid serious consideration to the goods in transit to Afghanistan, imports and exports.
