PESHAWAR:Pak-Afghan Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PAJCCI) on Wednesday urged State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to facilitate transaction processing in Pak-Afghan trade to avoid declining quantum.
The demand was made during an urgent meeting to deliberate the solution with State Bank of Pakistan, said a press release issued here on Wednesday.
PAJCCI held several stakeholder meetings across the country to identify issues and potential of trade between Pakistan and Afghanistan in last six months.
The meetings were held with different trade bodies, private stakeholders across the border and government functionaries.
After change of regime in Afghan in August 2021 and international sanctions, banking channel in Afghanistan collapsed resulting in several difficulties in trade payments.
During the meeting the participants were informed that the issue of reluctance shown by commercial banks in processing third party payments in context of Afghanistan was critically affecting the conduct of business, despite significant demand from different business segments from Afghanistan.
Additionally difficulty in obtaining E-forms for CIS countries was limiting businesses to reap opportunities available.
Arshad Bhatti, Executive Director, Banking Policy and Regulations Group, informed that SBP had not implemented any restriction on Commercial banks in Pakistan, however, cross border corresponding banks were refusing to conduct any transaction related to Afghanistan due to international sanctions.
In light of recent amendment of GLA by US Treasury Department, SBP had been in constant communication with corresponding banks overseas and their representatives in Pakistan to resolve the issue, he added.
In addition, SBP had also involved Ministry of Foreign Affairs and MOC to use their offices in resolving the issues and develop feasible alternate to process payments till third party payment system would be functional.
He advised that traders could bring foreign currency for payments over the counter by declaring at border customs counter and providing declaration document to banks.
He assured that in cases where banks refused any legitimate request, same could be escalated to SBP via PAJCCI offices and SBP would take it up with relevant banks.
He thanked PAJCCI for raising the issues which were critical to Pakistan’s economic uplift and assured that SBP would continue to support business community and would take all measures to resolve third party payments.
Zubair Motiwala, Chairman PAJCCI appreciated the efforts of SBP, saying that support of Government of Paksitan entities were invaluable to the cause of economic uplift of the region and its dependent upon the uplift of Pakistan-Afghanistan economic activities which had potential of USD 15bln yearly.
He hoped that in the light of current amendments in GLA & UN aid package, the issue of transaction processing would be resolved with the efforts of SBP in short time.