ISLAMABAD: United Business Group (UBG) of the Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry has established five high profile facilitation centres for Afghan importers and exporters for smooth flow of trade between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The centres have been established at Peshawar, Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and Quetta, according to press statement issued by UBG here Friday.
The centres would assist, guide and address issues faced by Afghan traders adding that the Afghan traders could approach these centres on following email identities:
Daroo Khan Achakzai Baluchistan [email protected]; Dr Mirza Ikhtiar Baig Karachi; [email protected]; Rehmat Ullah Javed, Lahore [email protected]; Zafar Bakhtawari Islamabad “[email protected]; Ghazanfar Bilour Peshawar “[email protected]”
Meanwhile, Chairman UBG Iftikhar Ali Malik while talking to Afghan traders delegation, led by Muslim Khan expressed the hope that volume of bilateral trade traffic on both sides would increase massively in the coming days contrary to fears of reduction in Pak Afghan trade and transit trade due to the changing situation in Afghanistan.
He said in a couple of days trade between the two countries had almost doubled, adding that it was good opening that the new Afghan government, in one go, reduced customs duties on 159 items in Afghanistan which included construction, steel, cement, glass, plastic, foams, petroleum products and foods.
Iftikhar Ali Malik said if situation improved in coming days in Afghanistan, the confidence of local and foreign investors and traders including general Afghan people would be restored, adding that business-friendly conducive environments would create job opportunities and strengthening the fractured economy of decades long war-torn country.