Daily Times

The economic corridors have been in use since the earliest human civilization. The historic roots of such corridors, initially trade routes, go back to around 4000 BC. However, the development of special-purpose corridors is a recent phenomenon, which was introduced in the 1950s and 1960s.

Over the years, the concept of economic corridors became prevalent because of the inherent capability to support continued growth via connectivity within countries and regions. This led to the creation of new corridors for regional integration to promote socio-economic development through common agendas and shared goals.

The importance of economic corridors as a development mechanism is strongly related to the idea of establishing economic and trade clusters. The industrial and trade strategies of a country and the development of economic corridors strongly complement one another.

Over the years, Pakistan has taken several steps for the development of regional trade, infrastructure, and energy corridors, including the Economic cooperation organization (ECO) Afghan transit trade (ATT), Tajikistan Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India (TAPI), and China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Out of all these trade corridors, Afghan Transit Trade Corridor, with its three routes, leading to Afghanistan through Torkham, Ghulam Khan and Chaman, has been fully functional. However, despite dreams and desires, Pakistan could not move beyond Afghanistan to CARs and Russia. The ECO had partial success in the shape of train traffic going up to Istanbul. The development of the CPEC Economic Corridor is in its infancy stage despite the passage of quite a time.

The importance of economic corridors as a development mechanism is strongly related to the idea of establishing economic and trade clusters.

Pakistan, therefore, needs to introspect and reflect as to what has gone wrong, why, and what could be done to enhance the productivity of existing economic corridors and explore the possibility of opening up new avenues for socio-economic development. This Oped series critically assess the current status of the economic corridors in Pakistan.

Pakistan has multiple trade corridors linking the country with its neighbours like Afghanistan, Iran, India and China. Presently, a few of these corridors are operative, whereas others are dormant. There is a trade corridor originating from Karachi, traversing Karachi-Quetta Road and entering Afghanistan through Chaman. Another corridor begins at Karachi, crosses KP through Indus Highway and enters Afghanistan from Torkham and Ghulam Khan. Similarly, a trade corridor starts at Wahga, moves upward through motorway/ GT roads, touches Peshawar and enters Afghanistan from Torkham. For trade with China, Pakistan has a corridor, which opens at Sost and takes multiple courses inside the country. With Iran, Pakistan has trade corridors of Quetta-Taftan-Zahedan and Gwadar-Gabd- Iran. Pakistan’s trade linkages through road corridors do not go beyond the immediately adjacent neighbouring countries due to multiple factors. A road corridor had also been planned under the ECO. The same, although yet untapped, has connectivity with Central Asia and Europe through the transportation network of Iran and Turkey.

Pakistan has rail connectivity with Iran and India, which has been utilized to promote trade and generate economic activity. A rail corridor, which had been established under the auspices of the ECO, has been operating since 2009 (with periods of long suspension) to carry Pakistani exports to Turkey and further to Europe. This rail corridor starts from Islamabad and reaches Quetta through Lahore. Crossing through Iran, the Rail Corridor ends in Turkey.

A goods train carrying Pakistani exports, like cement and salt, to India and bringing back imported goods, like vegetable seeds, betel leaves, and oil pigments, used to ply between the two countries, but the same is presently not operative due to suspension of trade relations. On the south side, Pakistan also had rail connectivity with India via Khokhrapar. This rail link is also closed. There were plans for the upgradation of rail networks like ML1, Ml-2 and ML-3 under the CPEC, but the work on these initiatives has not started yet.

Besides land, Pakistan also has trade connectivity with the regional countries through air corridors linking Karachi, Lahore, Multan and Sialkot airports with the rest of the world. Likewise, Pakistan has seaports at Port Qasim, Karachi and Gwadar. These have linkages with the rest of the world. Besides regular shipping, Pakistan has sea trade links with the UAE through boats.

Pakistan, at present, is a signatory to multiple Transit Trade Agreements. On the bilateral level, there are two active agreements: Afghanistan Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA) 2010 and Uzbekistan Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (UPTTA)2021.

On the multilateral level, there are Quadrilateral Traffic & Transit Agreement (QTTA) 1995, ECO Transit Transport Framework Agreement (TTFA) 1998, the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) 2010 and Transport International Routiers (TIR) 2015.

Presently, Trade under ATTA is thriving. But, almost perpetual instability in Afghanistan has compelled Pakistan to look for other avenues for reaching Central Asian Republics. One such initiative was QTTA.

(To be Continued)

Abdul Rauf studies at Jiangsu University of Science & Technology, China. He is interested in emerging technologies and Pan-Asian economies.Saud Bin Ahsen is a freelancer.
He can be reached at saudzafar5@gmail.com.