KABUL: Pakistani traders in Kabul this week for the Third Pakistan Goods Exhibition complained about the influx of low-quality goods across the border from their country into Afghanistan, which they, along with many in the Afghan business community, have said pose a threat to the development of trade ties between the two countries as well as broader commercial growth in the Afghan economy.
The first day of the Goods Exhibition in Kabul on Wednesday opened to a smaller crowd than expected, a disappointment that Pakistani traders in attendance attributed to increased smuggling of cheap, low-quality goods from Pakistan to Afghanistan. The trade representatives called on both governments to crackdown on the exporting and importing of low-quality goods, including different varieties of food and beverage products, textiles, home appliances, electronics and detergents.
“We have problems because different kinds of goods are imported to Afghanistan and the governments of both countries must prevent smuggling,” one Pakistani businessman named Sarfaraz Khan said on Wednesday.
Officials from the Afghan Chamber of Commerce and Industries (ACCI) have echoed the concerns voiced by the Pakistani tradesmen regarding low-quality imports in Afghanistan. “We want the Minister of Trade to activate the Standards Administration and prevent low-quality foreign goods from entering Afghanistan,” ACCI Deputy Director Khan Jan Alakozai said.
Afghan retailers have also agreed that low-quality imports are having a detrimental effect on the consumer market. “We have problems because a few kinds of goods come to the market and it is obvious that the smuggled goods are low-quality,” one Kabul shopkeeper named Ahmad Ali told TOLOnews.
Nevertheless, the Ministry of Trade in Pakistan, which helped organize the Goods Exhibition in Kabul this week, expressed a general sense of optimism about improving trade ties with Afghanistan.
“We have not come to Kabul only, but we will go to Mazar-e-Sharif, and from there will be going to Tajikistan,” Pakistani Trade Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan said on Wednesday. “Inshallah, the expansion of trade relations between the two countries will be based on the demands of the leaders of both countries.”
At the moment, the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan are in negotiations over the future of their Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit and Trade Agreement (APTTA). Kabul has pushed to have India join the pact, while Pakistan has sought to only include Tajikistan.
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