Trade between Pakistan and Afghanistan fell by 74% in fiscal year 2025-26, dropping to $358 million from $1.3 billion a year earlier, according to the Pakistan Trade Development Authority. The sharp decline was largely driven by the closure of key border crossings between the two countries and rising tensions.<\/p>\n
Torkham, one of the busiest crossings between Afghanistan and Pakistan, has been shut following deadly clashes, while other crossings such as Kharlachi, Ghulam Khan and Angoor Adda in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, as well as Chaman in Balochistan, are also facing trade restrictions. The closures have had a significant negative impact on traders, transport companies and border communities whose livelihoods depend on trade.<\/p>\n
Afghanistan\u2019s transit trade through Pakistan has also fallen sharply. The number of transit containers dropped from nearly 89,000, worth about $5 billion, to just 11,592 containers worth $367 million in the latest fiscal year.<\/p>\n
Pakistan exports pharmaceuticals, cement, plastics, rice, fruit and vegetables to Afghanistan, while imports include onions, tomatoes, seeds, grapes, apricots, apples, coal and raw lead. According to Janid Altaf, former president of the Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry, border disruptions have hit businesses, workers and border communities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa the hardest.<\/p>\n
Pakistan\u2019s pharmaceutical industry has also suffered losses. Data from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics shows the value of the country\u2019s pharmaceutical exports to Afghanistan stood at about $130 million in fiscal year 2023-24. Agricultural traders also said that before the border closures, around 50 trucks carrying potatoes and 25 trucks carrying vegetables were exported daily to Afghanistan, but that flow has now stopped.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pakistan-Afghanistan trade fell 74% to $358 million in FY 2025-26 as border closures and tensions disrupted transit and exports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,17,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-important-news","category-top-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}