NA body for rejecting pressure in ATTA talks

ISLAMABAD - Chairman National Assembly Standing Committee on Commerce Engineer Khurram Dastgir Khan Thursday said that foreign pressure and influence must be rejected firmly during negotiations of the Afghan Transit Trade Agreement (ATTA).
He said this while talking to the media after the meeting of Standing Committee on Commerce, which was held on Thursday at the Parliament House. The Committee expressed serious reservations about the proposed agreement of Pak-Afghan Transit Trade.
The Chairman said the Government should take stern measures to stop the black market of transit goods and to protect the Pakistani local trucking industry.
The committee recommended that opening of a Letter of Credit be made mandatory for Afghan importers through Afghan banks in orders to check back-smuggling of transit goods, and that the duty and tariff structures of Pakistan and Afghanistan be harmonised to discourage smuggling.
Legislators are deeply concerned about the inexplicably large amount of Afghan imported raw materials and luxury goods, both of which the Afghan economy cannot absorb in its present condition. These goods inevitably filter back into Pakistan and hurt domestic manufactures and legal importers.
The chairman ordered the Commerce Ministry to submit minutes of the four rounds of ATTA negotiations. Committee members expressed apprehension over reports that a foreign power was trying to influence the Pakistani delegation during the recent round of negotiations in Kabul and that Pakistan had already conceded that Afghan trucks would be allowed to travel from Karachi to Afghanistan.
The committee was told that the fifth round of Pak-Afghan talks about new transit trade pact would commence in Islamabad on December 19.
Federal Secretary Commerce told the committee that Afghanistan wanted to start formal trade with India via Pakistan. He said Afghan products were already being sent to India through the Pakistani route, but India was not allowed to export its products from this route.
Afghanistan has admitted to the problem of border smuggling, he said, adding that Afghanistan is not prepared to formalise this informal trade.
The committee was also briefed on the operations of the Pakistan Tobacco Board and Pakistan Institute of Trade and Development on their operations. The committee had asked both the departments to provide details of the governing boards, salary structure, and non-development expenditure. The committee decided to refer a project to PITAD for research into Afghan Transit Trade.
Khurram stressed that integrity, transparency, and efficiency must be the yardstick for PTB and PITAD to base their performance.
MNAs Yasmin Rehman, Tahira Aurangzeb, Shireen Arshad Khan and Jamila Gilani attended the meeting.