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Agreement with Kabul reached to facilitate coal trade for power generation
[DAWN] Pakistain and Afghanistan have reached an agreement to facilitate bilateral trade, especially coal for use in power generation to bridge the shortfall in electricity production in the wake of the high cost of furnace oil in the international market.Coal is already being imported in small quantities for power generation via Chaman border station in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... . Under the new agreement, coal imports will start at custom stations in Kharlachi and Ghulam Khan in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. The coal will be used in power production at two plants — Hubco and Sahiwal plants. On July 5, the government authorised the trade of all rupee-denominated goods via land routes. According to official sources, the coal import will address the country’s energy security to a large extent has already been reached with Kabul to import coal through trucks via land routes, the official added. Pakistain has already turned into a net importer from Afghanistan since the Taliban  ...Arabic for students... took control of Kabul in August 2021. During the period, Pakistain’s exports to Afghanistan also saw a deeper drop due to the non-availability of tradable currency through banking channels. The decisions were reached during the three-day visit (July 18—20) of a Pakistain trade delegation to Kabul. Pakistain’s Secretary Commerce Sualeh Faruqui, headed the delegation to discuss mutual actions for enhancing bilateral trade, transit, and connectivity and take necessary trade facilitation measures. Islamabad, in return, has offered several facilitation measures to promote imports from Afghanistan. One of the major demands from Kabul was for duty-free imports from Afghanistan, particularly of food items, to help combat rising food inflation. Posted by: Fred 2022-07-25 |
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