KARACHI: Repeated closures of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border have introduced bilateral drugs commerce to a standstill, leaving a whole bunch of vans stranded and “jeopardising” almost $200 million value of pharmaceutical exports, trade sources stated.
Business representatives warn that the continued blockade at Torkham and Chaman is crippling pharmaceutical provides to Afghanistan, spoiling temperature-sensitive medicine, and exposing Pakistan to large industrial losses at a time when exporters can not afford one other shock.
They argue that Afghanistan stays Pakistan’s largest overland buying and selling accomplice and the primary transit route for onward entry to Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan. Every shutdown cuts Pakistan off from these landlocked economies, disrupts regional connectivity tasks, and undermines multilateral investments tied to the Pakistan-Uzbekistan-Afghanistan railway and different hall initiatives.
“The closures at the moment are so frequent that they’ve develop into a structural menace, forcing nations investing on this route to think about extra predictable options. For Pakistan’s pharmaceutical sector, the affect is already extreme,” stated Tauqeer ul Haq of the Pakistan Pharmaceutical Producers Affiliation (PPMA).
“Nearly all exports to Afghanistan have stopped, and containers carrying antibiotics, insulin, vaccines, cardiovascular drugs, and different important medicines are caught at border crossings, dry ports, and warehouses. The delays have pushed native producers towards irreversible monetary losses. In a single case, a single agency has merchandise value Rs850 million stranded at Torkham and Chaman, whereas greater than fifty firms face comparable setbacks.”
Revealed in Daybreak, December sixth, 2025
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