According to Amac News: Zia-ul-Haq Sarhadi, the deputy head of the chamber, said in a statement that several factors were the reasons for the decline.
According to him, the Pakistani government has imposed restrictions such as temporary acceptance documents, requiring bank guarantees of the value of goods, adding 14 items to the negative list, imposing 10 percent tariffs on Afghan transit goods and stopping more than 300 Afghan commercial containers in Afghanistan. It is the port of Karachi that has led to a decline in trade relations between the two countries.
Sarhadi said these policies had led to a large part of Afghanistan's trade being shifted to Iran's Chabahar port instead of Karachi, resulting in thousands of people losing their jobs at Pakistani customs.
The Afghanistan-Pakistan Joint Chamber of Commerce has called for an immediate review of these policies to avoid further damage to trade and economic cooperation between the two countries.
Earlier, the Afghan embassy in Islamabad announced diplomatic meetings between Afghan and Pakistani officials with a focus on developing trade and investment relations.
The Afghan embassy in Islamabad said in a statement that Sardar Ahmad Shakib, the Afghan government's ambassador to Pakistan, met with Mohammad Talha Mahmood, a member of the Pakistani Senate and former minister of religious affairs.
The main focus of the talks was on developing trade relations between the two countries, establishing consultative mechanisms to address existing challenges and exploring new investment opportunities, the statement said.
The Afghan ambassador stressed the need to expand economic cooperation and efforts to remove trade barriers, the statement added. During the meeting, the two sides discussed the current problems in the trade route between Afghanistan and Pakistan and made proposals to strengthen economic relations.
Meanwhile, Syed Abdul Jabbar Takhari, acting consulate of the Afghan government in Karachi, also met with Junaid Makda, head of the Afghanistan-Pakistan Joint Chamber of Commerce.
The meeting is aimed at strengthening trade relations between the two countries, solving the problems of investors and removing obstacles facing businessmen. The two sides agreed to find practical solutions to improve the trade situation between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The move comes as Afghanistan's exports to the country have fallen sharply due to the imposition of new laws and restrictions by the Pakistani government.
Experts believe that the continuation of this trend could have a negative impact on the economies of both countries. Therefore, the recent diplomatic efforts to resolve challenges and expand economic cooperation are seen as a positive step towards improving relations between Kabul and Islamabad.
Increasing coordination among business institutions and establishing operational frameworks to address existing barriers can pave the way for sustainable economic development between Afghanistan and Pakistan.