After a four-year suspension, sugar exports to Afghanistan have recommenced, with over 400 vehicles crossing the Torkham border in the past four days, reported Dawn.
As per media report, Pakistan has recently approved the export of sugar to Afghanistan, with an August 15 deadline for completing the shipments.
Customs clearing agents at Torkham informed that vehicles crossed into Afghanistan. The government had imposed the sugar export ban four years ago to manage shortages and control prices within the country.
In response to smuggling concerns, the administration of the Khyber tribal district, along with the police, has set up numerous checkposts along the Peshawar-Torkham Highway. They have confiscated significant quantities of sugar from warehouses in Torkham and Landi Kotal and arrested many smugglers since the ban was enacted. But all these efforts couldn’t help the authorities stop sugar smuggling at all, as the traders used different methods and also involved young and minor daily wagers and porters to smuggle sugar across the border to destinations where demand was high.
The development has been welcomed by sugar exporters and transporters who said that the restriction had badly hurt their businesses.
