Afghanistan’s business community says prolonged closures of key border crossings with Pakistan have caused heavy losses, including the spoilage of an estimated $50 million worth of Afghan grapes.
Khan Jan Alokozay, a board member of the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Investment, said border closures had inflicted serious direct and indirect damage on traders on both sides.
“When Afghan fruit was being exported – grapes worth nearly $50 million – it spoiled,” Alokozay told Amu TV. “Now that Pakistani vegetables are affected, Pakistan is losing around $2 million a day.”
Alokozay said Afghanistan has five major and strategic trade crossings with Pakistan, adding that between 10,000 and 15,000 containers carrying Afghan transit goods are currently stuck at Pakistani ports.
He said the disruption was costing traders “hundreds of millions of dollars a day” as perishable goods deteriorate and lose market value.
Before the closures, Afghanistan conducted about $200 million in monthly trade with Pakistan, Alokozay said, adding that commercial activity has now largely come to a halt.
He estimated that around $600 million in bilateral trade had not taken place during the closure period, forcing factories to stop operations and disrupting economic activity across the country.
“As days pass, losses increase,” he said, noting rising prices in local markets and mounting damage to farmers and orchard owners.
Border crossings between Afghanistan and Pakistan have been fully closed to trade for more than two months following eight days of clashes between Pakistani forces and Taliban fighters along the frontier.
Despite several rounds of talks held in Doha, Istanbul and Riyadh after the clashes, the two sides have yet to reach an agreement on reopening the crossings.
Earlier, Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s deputy chief minister for economic affairs, said the borders would reopen only if Pakistan guarantees that the crossings would not be shut again “under any circumstances, whether during conflict or normal conditions.”
