ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to increase bilateral trade by allowing free movement of trucks and other goods carrying vehicles during a two-day visit of an official delegation from Islamabad that concluded its negotiations with Afghan authorities on Wednesday.
The delegation traveled to Kabul earlier this week where its members held meetings with the acting Afghan ministers for commerce and foreign affairs along with other senior officials.
According to a statement released by Pakistan’s diplomatic mission in Afghanistan, the two sides expressed satisfaction that bilateral trade and transit had registered growth during the current financial year while agreeing to further build on the momentum.

“It was agreed to make border crossing points more efficient to ensure early clearance of trade and transit traffic and address the bottlenecks and impediments on priority basis,” the statement added. “The two sides agreed to implement Temporary Admission Document (TAD) allowing free movement of bilateral trade vehicles and prevent loading and unloading of goods at the border crossing points with view to further increase trade between the two countries.”

The Pakistan embassy also informed the two countries agreed to increase operational timings at all crossing points between them.
They decided to “evolve mutually connected custom procedures and systems to improve efficiency in clearance of goods.”
Apart from that, the two countries decided to make all possible efforts to start “luxury bus service between Peshawar and Jalalabad and Quetta and Kandahar” from the end of August this year.
Pakistan and Afghanistan reiterated their resolve to remove difficulties in processing visas by emphasizing mutual coordination.