Though the country has been plagued with crises for the past decades, it still tried to maintain some trade relationships. Let us look at its existing trade relationships
Afghanistan- Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement
The Afghanistan–Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA) is a bilateral trade agreement between Pakistan and Afghanistan that was signed in 2010 and asked for increased ease in the transit of commodities between the two nations.
Both countries can use each other’s airports, railroads, roadways, and ports for transit trade along specified transit corridors under the 2010 APTTA. Road transport vehicles from any third country, including India and Central Asia, are not covered by the agreement.
Afghan vehicles would transport Afghan commodities across Pakistani territory and import items from Pakistani ports in Karachi, Port Qasim, and Gwadar via border crossings at Torkham, Ghulam Khan, and Chaman. The agreed agreement allows Afghan vehicles to travel to India’s Wagah border, where Afghan commodities will be offloaded onto Indian trucks. Still, it does not allow Indian goods to be loaded into trucks for transportation back to Afghanistan.
The APTTA agreement allows Afghan trucks to transport exports to India through Pakistan up to the Wagah crossing point, but it does not grant Afghanistan the right to import Indian goods across Pakistani territory, fearing that Indian goods would end up on the Pakistani black market as they did under the 1965 ATTA. Instead, Afghan trucks offloaded at Wagah may return to Afghanistan solely carrying Pakistani goods, rather than Indian goods, to avoid establishing a black market in Pakistan for Indian goods.
India Afghanistan PTA
The Contracting Parties are the Government of India and the Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan (hereafter referred to as “Contracting Parties”) because the expansion of their domestic markets through economic integration is a necessary condition for speeding up their economic development processes.
To promote mutually beneficial bilateral trade, convinced of the importance of establishing and promoting free trade to improve intra-regional economic cooperation and national economic development.
further acknowledging that a bilateral preferential trading arrangement (hereafter referred to as “The Agreement”) will assist in the expansion of world trade by gradually reducing and eliminating barriers to bilateral trade.
The following are the goals of this agreement:
- To promote the harmonious growth of India-Afghanistan economic relations through the expansion of commerce.
- To ensure that trade between India and Afghanistan is conducted fairly and competitively.
- The Contracting Parties must adhere to the principle of reciprocity in the execution of this Agreement.
- To contribute to the peaceful development and expansion of international trade in this way, by removing trade barriers.
Afghanistan and South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA)
The South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) is a 2004 agreement that established a 1.6 billion-strong free-trade zone in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka intending to boost economic integration and collaboration.
One of the main objectives was to eliminate all customs duties on all traded commodities by the year 2016. In the first phase of the two-year term concluding in 2007, SAFTA required developing countries in South Asia (India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka) to reduce their tariffs to 20%. The 20 percent tariff was reduced to zero in a succession of annual cutbacks throughout the final five-year period, which ended in 2012. The region’s least developed countries have an extra three years to lower tariffs to zero. In 2009, India and Pakistan approved the pact, while Afghanistan, as the SAARC’s eighth member, accepted the SAFTA protocol on 4 May 2011.
Afghanistan and ECOTA
The Economic Cooperation Organization Trade Agreement, or ECOTA, is a preferential trade agreement between Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, which was signed on July 17, 2003, at the ECO summit in Islamabad. The ECOTA has been in effect since 2008. Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Turkey agreed to establish a free trade zone by 2025 as part of the ECO Vision 2025.
