Pakistan is going to start trade based on product exchange with Iran, Afghanistan and Russia. For this purpose, the Ministry of Commerce of the country has issued a special order. The country will launch this business through the exchange of petroleum, natural gas and other special products.
In this regard, the news agency Reuters has published the news of India’s ‘Economic Times’. According to the news, Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves can cover a month’s worth of imports. The government of Pakistan is desperately trying to deal with the current account deficit and keep inflation under control. The country’s inflation rate rose to 38 percent in May. High inflation has been going on in the country for a year.
A list of goods that can be traded through the barter is given along with the government order. State-owned and privately-owned companies must participate in these trade negotiations with approval.
Sajid Amin, deputy director of Pakistan’s Sustainable Development Policy Institute, said Pakistan could import fuel and oil without dollars from Iran and Russia. He opined that there should be an opportunity to exchange these commodities at the rate at which the dollar reserves in Pakistan have decreased.
Sajid Amin also said that currency smuggling from Pakistan will not stop once the exchange system is introduced, especially not on the Afghanistan border. But what it will do is stop the smuggling of diesel from Iran and other goods from Afghanistan; This smuggling is detrimental to Pakistan’s economy.
Meanwhile, to save the dollar, Pakistan has been buying cheap fuel from Russia since April. At that time, Pakistan’s Petroleum Minister Musadiq Malik told Reuters that under this agreement, Pakistan will only buy crude oil and not any refined products.
However, Musadik Malik did not say anything clearly about how the price of oil bought from Russia will be paid. However, he said, if the first shipment goes well, an average of one lakh barrels of oil can be bought daily.
Meanwhile, fuel smuggling has also become a major headache in Pakistan. In May, the Pakistan Petroleum Distributors Association alleged that 35 percent of the diesel sold in that country was smuggled from Iran.
In addition, a large amount of goods such as flour, wheat, sugar and fertilizers are smuggled from Pakistan to Afghanistan. The government of the country has ordered to take strict measures to stop this smuggling.
