Aiming to forge long-term trade relations between Pakistan and India, the Punjabi Cultural Council (PCC) on Sunday appealed to both the governments to open and allow trade activities through the Hussainiwala (Ferozepur) and Sadki (Fazilka) borders like the Attari ICP.
This will help the farmers, industrialists and traders of the region to export and import goods and produce at low costs, said the Council chairman Harjeet Singh Grewal, besides demanding to open old rail routes with Pak through Dera Baba Nanak and Hussainiwala to benefit the travelers.
Grewal said that the farmers, traders and industrialists on both sides of the Redcliff line are impatient to have trade ties as there exists more potential that could boost trade through road and rail with other neighbouring and Central Asian countries also.
Lamenting at insufficient trade facilities and infrastructure at Attari border, he said that Indian traders are desperate at unsatisfactory services thereby exports and imports are at the lowest ebb.
“The exports and imports during 2017-18 through the land port Attari were only Rs 744 core and Rs 3,404 crore respectively whereas in 2014-15, it was Rs 2,117 crore and Rs 2,368 crore respectively. Similarly, flow of passengers passing through this international border had also plunged in the previous year,” he said.
Seeking to establish more ICPs on Punjab borders, Grewal informed that at present demand and supply with the Pak and the other countries was being met through Kandla (Gujarat) and Nava Sheva (Maharashtra) ports which was a costly affair for the Northern states thereby putting constraints on consumer markets in the neighboring nations.