ISLAMABAD: Despite high tension created by the cross-border firing of Indian forces, the bilateral trade between the neighbouring countries was not affected.
Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum President and former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain, in a statement said that last year, the official trade between two countries was recorded at $2.5b, it hasn’t improved but hasn’t dwindled for which military and civilian establishment of both countries must be lauded.
Pakistan exports to India stood at 495 million dollars while it imported goods worth 1.86 billion dollars, he said. In a statement, Mian Zahid Hussain said that trade through Wagah, Muzaffarabad and Karachi is insufficient therefore authorities must consider opening Khokhrapar.
He said that most of the world’s poor live in Saarc region which are deprived of decent living due to unending tensions between the most important countries of the grouping. Both nuclear states must realise that war is not an option and prosperity through trade is only way to end hostilities.
