Business Daily The cost of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border closure
Dec 15, 2025
Farhat Javid, a BBC reporter in Islamabad/Peshawar, shares on-the-ground insights about the clashes sparking the Pakistan-Afghanistan border closure. Kamran Nasir, CEO of AGP Pharma, highlights the dire impact on pharmaceutical exports and the risks to perishable medicines. Junaid Makhdar, president of the Pakistan-Afghanistan Joint Chamber of Commerce, presents alarming trade statistics, illustrating the economic consequences for both nations. They all stress the urgent need for diplomatic intervention to address the humanitarian and economic crisis unfolding at the border.
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Border As Regional Trade Artery
- The Pakistan-Afghanistan border is a critical land route linking landlocked Central Asian economies to Karachi port, making closures regionally disruptive.
- Closing the 1,600km frontier halts transit for Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan and quickly chokes export-import flows.
Massive Container Backlog
- Thousands of containers and hundreds of trucks have piled up in Pakistan since the closure, creating a logistics jam at ports and terminals.
- Junaid Makhdar reports 11,000 containers are stuck and daily cross-border volumes previously numbered in the hundreds.
Woman Trader's Business Collapsed
- A female trader in Peshawar trained other women and ran short-shelf-life food exports that collapsed after the border shut.
- She and many home businesses stopped production and switched off machines amid lost cross-border markets.