The Pak-Afghan Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PAJCCI) has voiced concern at the declining trade volume between the two countries.
Trade volume between the neighbors had fallen from $2.5 billion to $5million, PAJCCI Director Ziaul Haq Sarhadi said in a statement on Saturday.
While blaming the bureaucratic red tape in both countries for the trade slump, he said the business community wanted the trade volume to rise to $5 billion.
If the 2010 Pak-Afghan Transit Trade Agreement (PATTA) was not reviewed to remove hurdles to bilateral trade, the business situation would further worsen, he warned.
Sarhadi said in such a situation the ultimate sufferer would be Pakistan as Afghanistan had already improved trade relations with India and Iran.
The transit trade pact, he said, had been signed under pressure. The agreement had already been sabotaged in the prevailing uncertain regional environment, he noted.
Several meetings between officials of Pakistan and Afghanistan had been held in recent past but they failed to yield any positive results, Sarhadi concluded.
