The newspaper Dawn has reported that the suspension of trade between Afghanistan and Pakistan will have devastating effects on Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the whole of Pakistan.
Quoting Zia-ul-Haq Sarhadi, vice-president of the Pakistan-Afghanistan Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the paper wrote that Islamabad will lose a key market in Afghanistan and in Central Asia, with which it has recently signed multimillion-dollar agreements.
Sarhadi said Afghanistan can sign trade agreements with Iran, Turkey and almost all Central Asian countries “on conditions far easier than with Pakistan.”
He warned that Pakistan will permanently lose the Afghan market, which will lead to dissatisfaction among local traders and cause massive financial losses to Pakistan’s industries.
Zia-ul-Haq Sarhadi stressed that Pakistan exports goods worth 6.168 to 13.23 billion afghanis (USD 100–200 million) to Afghanistan each month. These goods include fresh fruit, cement, medicine, agricultural tools, fabric, shoes, plastic pipes and cosmetics.
Sarhadi said: “We are the ultimate losers, because with the closure of our borders with Afghanistan, Kabul now has more options than we do.”
Zahidullah Shinwari, former president of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said that besides losing Afghan and Central Asian markets, the halt in trade will seriously impact Pakistan’s tax revenues.
He added that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s industries will be particularly affected, as they are heavily dependent on the Afghan market.
Shinwari said: “A large portion of our major industries — especially cement factories — are run with coal imported from Afghanistan, so stopping the import of Afghan coal will drastically affect the production capacity of our major industries.”
He warned that if trade with Afghanistan ends permanently, most industrial units in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will shut down, hundreds of industrial workers will lose their jobs, and business owners will face bankruptcy.
Mujeebullah Shinwari, head of the Torkham Customs Clearing Agents Association, told Dawn that the closure of border crossings and the halt in trade have caused enormous financial losses to traders.
Shinwari said around 500 vehicles carrying a variety of export goods are stuck on the Pakistani side and must wait until the crossings are reopened.
Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s deputy prime minister for economic affairs, on Wednesday instructed importers of medicine from Pakistan to shift to alternative routes as soon as possible, just like other traders.
He said Islamabad has repeatedly closed trade routes and is “politicizing commercial and humanitarian matters.” Baradar added that this harms both countries’ traders and industrialists.
The Taliban official said that if Pakistan wants the crossings reopened and trade relations to continue, it must provide a firm and credible guarantee that under no circumstances — not even in the event of war — will it close the crossings again.
