By IRNA,
Islamabad : Pakistan said Tuesday it has postponed for four months implementation of a key transit trade agreement with the neighbouring Afghanistan over some technical problems.
The Afghanistan Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA) was signed last year, which allows landlocked Afghanistan to import goods through Pakistani sea ports.
The APTTA was to be implemented by February 12 but it has been delayed for four months, Pakistan’s Commerce Secretary, Zafar Mehmood, told a news conference in Islamabad.
“It was mutually agreed to extend the date of operationalization of the Agreement up to four months,” Mehmood said.
But the Afghan authorities and traders have reportedly criticized Pakistan’s decision.
Pakistani officials said that a meeting of the Afghanistan Pakistan Transit Trade Coordination Authority (APTTCA) will be held in six weeks to resolve the outstanding issues.
The two-day meeting of APTTCA in Islamabad ended on Saturday without achieving consensus on clauses pertaining to bank guarantees, international requirements for sealable trucks, biometric systems and installation of tracking systems. Afghan deputy commerce minister Mohammad Sharif Sharifi had attended the meeting.
The APTTA was pushed for by the US and its memorandum of understanding was inked in Washington about two years ago and the agreement was signed last year in the presence of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Afghanistan had agreed to provide trade route to Pakistan to Central Asia via Afghanistan under the transit trade agreement. Pakistan will also allow Afghan trucks to use its land route to export goods to India. But Indian goods will not be allowed land route.
Mehmood said that financial guarantee will be negotiable instrument issued by a scheduled bank and en-cashable in Pakistan, adding that bank guarantee/revolving bank guarantee should be issued by scheduled bank.
He said that traffic in transit will not be hampered due to want of tracking device and the existing system will prevail till the installation bio-metric system.