Afghan
president Ashraf Ghani and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are set
to finalize an air cargo service pact to diversify and boost bilateral
trade. The 2010 Pakistan-Afghanistan trade pact permits Afghan trucks
carrying goods to India to travel up to the last checkpoint at Wagah,
and not to the final Indian checkpoint at Attari, less than a kilometer
away. Pakistan is yet to provide a transit link for India-Afghan trade
through its territory. The trade and transit agreement was revised last
year—again, with no provisions for Indian goods passing through
Pakistan. The transit dilemma has since pushed Afghan traders in a
quandary.
Afghanistan
depends on Pakistan’s port of Karachi for its foreign trade. The air
corridor connectivity project comes as an alternative designed primarily
to enable a landlocked Afghanistan to trade with India, which happens
to be the biggest market for Afghan goods in all of South Asia. This
move is likely to help export Afghan fruits and carpets to India and
allow Indian medicines to be imported to Afghanistan.
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