Keep Us Strong WikiLeaks logo

Currently released so far... 51122 / 251,287

Articles

Browse latest releases

Browse by creation date

Browse by origin

A B C D F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

Browse by tag

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Browse by classification

Community resources

courage is contagious

Viewing cable 08KABUL3086, AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN JOINT ECONOMIC COMMISSION MEETING,

If you are new to these pages, please read an introduction on the structure of a cable as well as how to discuss them with others. See also the FAQs

Understanding cables
Every cable message consists of three parts:
  • The top box shows each cables unique reference number, when and by whom it originally was sent, and what its initial classification was.
  • The middle box contains the header information that is associated with the cable. It includes information about the receiver(s) as well as a general subject.
  • The bottom box presents the body of the cable. The opening can contain a more specific subject, references to other cables (browse by origin to find them) or additional comment. This is followed by the main contents of the cable: a summary, a collection of specific topics and a comment section.
To understand the justification used for the classification of each cable, please use this WikiSource article as reference.

Discussing cables
If you find meaningful or important information in a cable, please link directly to its unique reference number. Linking to a specific paragraph in the body of a cable is also possible by copying the appropriate link (to be found at theparagraph symbol). Please mark messages for social networking services like Twitter with the hash tags #cablegate and a hash containing the reference ID e.g. #08KABUL3086.
Reference ID Created Released Classification Origin
08KABUL3086 2008-11-30 13:35 2011-08-24 01:00 UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY Embassy Kabul
VZCZCXRO2411
PP RUEHIK RUEHPOD RUEHPW RUEHYG
DE RUEHBUL #3086/01 3351335
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 301335Z NOV 08
FM AMEMBASSY KABUL
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 6258
INFO RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHINGTON DC 0692
RUCNAFG/AFGHANISTAN COLLECTIVE
RUEHZG/NATO EU COLLECTIVE
RUEKJCS/OSD WASHINGTON DC
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHINGTON DC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC
RUEABND/DEA HQS WASHINGTON DC
RHMFIUU/HQ USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL
RHEHAAA/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHINGTON DC
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 KABUL 003086 
 
DEPT FOR SCA/FO, SCA/RA, AND SCA/A 
DEPT PASS AID/ANE 
DEPT PASS USTR FOR DEANGELIS AND DELANEY 
DEPT PASS OPIC FOR ZAHNISER 
DEPT PASS TDA FOR STEIN AND GREENIP 
USOECD FOR ENERGY ATTACHE 
CENTCOM FOR CSTC-A 
NSC FOR JWOOD 
TREASURY FOR LMCDONALD, ABAUKOL, BDAHL, AND MNUGENT 
OSD FOR SHIVERS 
COMMERCE FOR DEES, CHOPPIN, AND FONOVICH 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958 N/A 
TAGS: ECON ETRD ETRA PREL ECIN EAID AF PK
SUBJECT: AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN JOINT ECONOMIC COMMISSION MEETING, 
NOVEMBER 25-26, 2008 
 
1. (SBU) Summary.  The Joint Economic Commission (JEC) focused on 
the many trade, trucking, and transit issues that bedevil the 
Pak-Afghan bilateral economic relationship.  The two sides agreed to 
set up three new working groups to deal with these irritants.  One 
aims to negotiate a new Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Agreement and 
may meet as soon as January.  The Afghans hope a new treaty will 
resolve most of their grievances.  The second working group will 
take up Customs issues.  The third, a Joint Monitoring and 
Evaluation Committee, will report quarterly to the JEC on 
implementation of JEC decisions.  A fourth joint committee will 
prepare a joint proposal on funding of Reconstruction Opportunity 
Zones, which both sides strongly endorsed.  The Finance Ministry 
official who briefed us was pleased that the JEC took up the 
critical trade and transit issues and that the Afghan private sector 
played a helpful role.  At the same time he lamented that the 
Afghans have been raising most of their complaints for years.  The 
GOP, he said, promises to look into them but nothing ever changes. 
Our contact requested USG assistance to press the GOP to take action 
on these long-standing impediments to smoother regional trade.  End 
Summary 
 
2. (SBU) Finance Ministry Advisor for Regional Economic Cooperation 
Saifullah Abid gave EconCouns a readout on the JEC, which met 
November 25-26 in Kabul.  Appropriately, the meeting focused on the 
many trade and transit issues that bedevil the bilateral economic 
relationship.  Afghan businesses, represented by the Afghanistan 
Chamber of Commerce and Industries (ACCI), played an active role in 
the meeting and delivered a litany of complaints about the treatment 
of Afghan shippers and transit goods by Pakistani authorities.  The 
latter, in turn, had their own gripes about barriers to smooth 
movement of Pakistani goods through Afghanistan to Central Asia. 
 
3. (SBU) Abid said Afghan officials pressed hard for negotiation of 
a new Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Agreement (APTA) to replace the 
Afghan Transit Trade Agreement (ATTA) signed in 1965.  The GIRoA 
argued that most of the issues raised by both sides would be 
resolved by a new agreement.  According to the JEC Minutes, the 
GIRoA formally delivered a draft text of a new APTA to the Pakistani 
Embassy in Kabul on November 18.  The two sides agreed to form a 
Joint Working Group (JWG) to negotiate the APTA.  The Minutes say 
this bilateral group is to meet on the margins of the Regional 
Economic Cooperation Conference (RECC), planned for January 2009 in 
Islamabad.  However, the Foreign Ministry official responsible for 
Afghan preparation for the RECC told us November 30 that the RECC 
was being postponed until February or March because of security 
concerns in Islamabad.  The Ministry of Commerce and Industries 
(MOCI) will have the GIRoA lead on this JWG. 
 
4. (SBU) Afghan officials also complained about the lack of 
reciprocity in trucking services: Pakistani truckers can deliver 
goods to Afghan destinations and transit Afghanistan to third 
countries, but Afghan truckers are not allowed to enter Pakistan 
(beyond Peshawar) and are required to hire the military-owned 
National Logistics Cell (NLC) to move Afghan transit goods.  NLC's 
prices were excessive and its poor service led to long delays for 
Afghan transit goods at Karachi port.  Pakistani officials said 
there were security and revenue-leakage issues with Afghan trucks. 
The Minutes state that the two sides agreed to review these trucking 
issues in the JWG on APTA and resolve them in a new treaty. 
 
5. (SBU) Besides pressing for full rights for Afghan trucks, the 
GIRoA and ACCI proposed establishing a joint transport company 
between the Afghan and Pakistani private sectors to meet both sides' 
transit trade needs.  The Minutes state that this issue will be 
considered "by the Joint Pak-Afghan Chamber of Commerce within the 
APTA framework."  (Comment: Elsewhere the Minutes note that the 
 
KABUL 00003086  002 OF 002 
 
 
Pakistan-Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry has only met 
once.) 
 
6. (SBU) The Afghan side also raised a number of Customs issues, 
some relating to Pakistani fees it contends are illegal under the 
existing ATTA.  GOP officials cited the reduction to just two 
products - cigarettes and spare parts - on the Negative List of 
goods that may not transit Pakistan to Afghanistan.  The GIRoA 
pressed for elimination of these two.  The two sides agreed to form 
a Joint Customs Committee to deal with these issues.  The Finance 
Ministry will lead the Afghan side in this working group. 
 
7. (SBU) For their part, GOP officials complained, among other 
things, about constraints on Pakistani transit trade through 
Afghanistan to Central Asia, including shippers having to register 
with three ministries, levies at various checkpoints, and the 
requirement to post a guarantee of 110 percent of the value of the 
cargo, returnable when exiting Afghanistan.  GIRoA said it is 
working to remove the guarantee within six months and proposed that 
other issues be covered in the context of a new APTA. 
 
8. (SBU) The two sides agreed to form, within one month, a Joint 
Monitoring and Evaluation Committee charged with tracking 
implementation of JEC decisions.  This working group, led by MOCI on 
the Afghan side, is to report quarterly to JEC. 
 
9. (SBU) Abid said both sides expressed support for Reconstruction 
Opportunity Zones and hoped the USG would soon be able to launch the 
program.  They agreed to "jointly encourage the donors to fund [the] 
initiative and ... to form a Joint Committee to prepare a joint 
proposal for ROZs funding within the next three months."  (Comment: 
Regional recognition of the value of the ROZ program is, of course, 
welcome, but despite our efforts, the misunderstanding persists that 
ROZs are a donor-funded aid project, rather than a business-led 
trade preference scheme.  We will keep trying to correct it.) 
 
10. (SBU) The two sides also discussed Pakistani reconstruction 
assistance to Afghanistan.  Abid said GOP officials undertook to 
complete ongoing projects and to consider, once Pakistan's financial 
situation improves, the GIRoA wish-list of new projects.  They also 
discussed connecting the two countries' fiber optic networks, which 
would require the Pakistani side to install only a 15-km section 
between Peshawar and Torkham.  Abid said the GOP agreed to consider 
this and also suggested that the GIRoA speak to Etisalat, the UAE 
private investor in the Pakistani phone company (PTCL).  The two 
sides did not discuss preparations for the RECC. 
 
11. (SBU) Overall, Abid had mixed views on the results of the JEC. 
He said the GIRoA was well prepared and put all its issues on the 
table, Afghan business played a helpful role, the exchange was frank 
and atmospherics good.  At the same time, he was disappointed that 
Pakistani delegation leader Shaukat Tarin only participated in the 
signing of the Minutes (he held bilateral meetings with President 
Karzai and three ministers).  As a result, Finance Minister Ahady 
only attended the opening and signing sessions, and most of the 
meeting was chaired at sub-cabinet level.  Creation of the three 
working groups held potential, but Abid lamented that the Afghans 
have been raising most of their complaints for years.  The GOP, he 
said, promises to look into them but nothing ever happens.  Abid 
specifically requested USG assistance to press the GOP to take 
action on these long-standing impediments to smoother regional 
trade, which he also noted affect Coalition military efforts in 
Afghanistan.  EconCouns undertook to relay the request. 
DELL