Trade will resume across the LoC!!!!
Pakistani and Indian officials met on 3rd August on Kaman bridge over a water channel that marks the divide between Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir's (POJK) Chakothi sector and Jammu and Kashmir’s Uri sector, some 60 kilometres south of the Muzaffarabad, and agreed to resume stalled trade between the two countries across the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir starting Aug 8 and the 'Carvan-e-Aman' (Caravan of Peace) bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad will be resumed also on Tuesday next week," .
Participants of the meeting decided to reduce the number of trucks carrying mercantile goods from both sides to 40 from the earlier figure of 70 per day starting August 8. Both sides also agreed to repatriate the stranded passengers of the Tetrinote-Chakan da Bagh crossing point to their respective sides from Chakothi-Uri on August 7. The travel and trade activity at the Tetrinote-Chakan da Bagh crossing point was suspended on July 7, due to heavy cross-LoC shelling in Poonch division.
Trade across the Chakothi-Uri crossing point suffered a blow on July 21 after a truck from POJK had ferried across a "huge quantity of heroin. Police had recovered 300 packets of heroin with a total weight of 66.5 kilograms from one of the trucks from POJK hidden in the boxes purportedly containing textile goods. The consignment, booked by one Anjum Zaman in POJK, was meant for Kuloo Suppliers and addressed to Gul Ayazudin Gouhar at Fruit Mandi Parimpora Srinagar.
POJK-Jammu Kashmir trade was launched in October 2008 as a confidence-building measure (CBM) between India and Pakistan.
In January 2014, Indian authorities recovered 114 packets of heroin concealed in the consignment of almonds from POJK. Similarly, in February 2015, recovered heroin "concealed in the boxes of oranges" in one of the 22 trucks from POJK.
The idea of the Srinagar–Muzaffarabad Bus was inspired by the success of the Delhi–Lahore Bus, established in 1999, as well as other cross-border transport initiatives such as the Samjhauta Express and the Thar Express. The official agreement was promulgated on February 16, 2005, when then-Indian Minister of External Affairs K. Natwar Singh visited the then-Pakistani President Pervez Musharaff in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. The decision was announced along with agreements on starting a new bus service connecting the Pakistani city of Lahore and the Indian city of Amritsar, establishing the Thar Express train service and opening respective consulates in the cities of Karachi, Pakistan, and Mumbai, India.
The bus runs a distance of 170 kilometres (110 mi). The bus service was officially launched on April 7, 2005.
Size of Trade
Currently only 21 items have been approved for trade between the POJK and Jammu Kashmir. Based on the prices of goods being provided by the traders, in the three years up to the end of the 2015-16 fiscal year, commodities worth nearly 15 billion Indian rupees ($220 miillion) were exported to Pakistan on the Uri-Muzaffarabad and Poonch-Rawalakot routes. Imports of nearly Rs 13 billion ($190 million) were made during the same period. That’s up from 2011-12, when exports to Pakistan-Occupied Jammu Kashmir (POJK) were worth Rs 3.2 billion ($44 million), while imports were at Rs 5.31 billion ($78 billion).
Smuggling activities!!!!
In March 2017, the National Investigation Agency has found at least five companies with links to the Hizb-ul Mujahideen.
Sources said that these companies were engaged in barter trade with some Pakistan-based individuals/companies that were under-invoicing the import of California almonds (badam giri) at trade facilitation centres (TFCs) located at Salamabad and Chakkan-da-Bagh in J&K. The under-invoicing led to windfall profits for the Indian companies now under the scanner and that money was most likely used for "terror operations".
Under-invoicing is the act or practice of stating the price of a good on an invoice as being less than the price actually paid. Under invoicing occurs if the importer and/or exporter wish to reduce a tariff or if a buyer and/or seller wish to reduce their apparent profits so as to pay less in taxes.