Pakistan-China border trade to resume next week after 3 years

islamabad: After a three-year hiatus, Pakistan and China are set to resume trade from Monday through the Khunjerab Pass, the only all-weather land route between the two allies, a news report said on Saturday.

The Khunjerab Pass was closed in November 2019 to contain the transmission of the COVID-19 virus between the two countries.

Both sides finalized arrangements to reopen the border point for bilateral trade and other activities under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the Dawn newspaper reported.

The US$60 billion CPEC, connecting Baluchistan’s Gwadar port with China’s Xinjiang province, is the flagship project of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The CPEC is a network of roads, railways, pipelines and ports in Pakistan that connects China with the Arabian Sea.

Gilgit-Baltistan Home Secretary Rana Mohammad Saleem Afzal said officials from both sides have agreed to reopen the Khunjerab pass for trade and travel activities from April 3. He added that the border pass issuance process would begin soon, according to the report.

“The most important thing is that it is a CPEC route. CPEC shipments will enter Pakistan through the Khunjerab Pass from China,” he said.

Under an agreement, trade and travel activities between the two countries through the Khunjerab Pass start annually on April 1 and end on November 30. The daily bus service also travels from the Gilgit-Baltistan region’s Sost Valley to China’s Xinjiang province, the report said.

The first commercial activity between China and Pakistan under the CPEC started via the Karakoram Highway in November 2016.

State Minister for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar said the federal government had been working to revive CPEC’s activities, according to the report. She added that all obstacles in the way of bilateral trade would be removed.

The prolonged closure of the Khunjerab pass caused enormous financial hardship for the local business community and thousands of workers were left without work, according to the report, citing officials.

Over the past three years, the Pass has occasionally been opened for the transportation of emergency cargo from China to Pakistan on specified days.

The volume of trade between the two countries would increase after the reopening of the Khunjerab pass, Gilgit-Baltistan customs collector Syed Fawad Ali Shah said in the report.

He said that all the necessary arrangements had been finalized for normal trade in the dry port of Sost Shah added that he met with traders, the port administration and other stakeholders, who were happy and assured the administration of their cooperation in the activities. commercial without problems in the dry port.

Haji Liaquat of the Gilgit-Baltistan Association of Importers and Exporters said people affiliated with trade between the two countries were optimistic about the revival of economic activities in the region, according to the report.

He added that the people of the region and the government treasury suffered billions of rupees worth of losses due to the prolonged disruption of trade in the dry port of Sost.