Mian Zahid Hussain, President of the Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum and All Karachi Industrial Alliance, Chairman of the National Business Group Pakistan and FPCCI Policy Advisory Board, and a former provincial minister, has said that 60% of the Afghan transit trade has shifted from Pakistan to Iran’s Chabahar port, causing losses of millions of dollars to the country’s logistics and transport sectors. .
Mian Zahid Hussain, who holds several key positions including President of the Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum, said on Monday that although national security is the top priority, an effective strategy is urgently needed to counter the severe economic losses. He stressed that repeated border closures and the infiltration of terrorist elements have caused irreparable damage to both regional security and trade.
Citing data from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics and the State Bank of Pakistan, Mian Zahid Hussain revealed a sharp decline in bilateral trade, which was approximately $1.45 billion in the fiscal year 2024-25. He warned that if the intermittent closures of the Torkham and Chaman borders continue, the total trade volume could fall below $800 million by the end of the current fiscal year, a potential decrease of 45 percent.
Pakistani exports have been particularly hard hit, with shipments of cement, pharmaceuticals, and agricultural products recording a 35 percent decrease compared to the previous year. The situation at the border has created a logistics crisis, where hundreds of trucks loaded with perishable goods like kinnows and vegetables are spoiling, incurring demurrage charges of over fifty million rupees daily. Hussain warned that this disruption is allowing Pakistan’s trade competitors to consolidate their position in Central Asian markets.
This economic crisis extends across the border, where supply chain disruptions have led to a 20 to 30 percent increase in food prices in eastern Afghanistan. Afghan traders specializing in fruit and coal exports are also facing severe financial losses.
In response to the crisis, Mian Zahid Hussain urged the government to immediately implement a smart border management system. He advocated for strict security measures, including intelligence-based hot pursuit operations to eliminate terrorism, while simultaneously ensuring the passage of scanned and secure trade convoys to “save Pakistan’s traders and economy from complete devastation.”