KARACHI: In an unprecedented move to avert an industrial shutdown in Uzbekistan, Pakistani authorities have initiated the emergency air-lifting of critical transit cargo from Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport (JIAP), bypassing a months-long land route paralysis that has stranded thousands of containers and threatens regional trade relations.
The high-stakes operation, confirmed by customs and commerce officials, involves auto parts desperately needed by the Swiss-owned automotive giant, UzAuto Motors. The parts are essential to complete approximately 30,000 unfinished vehicles, whose production lines in Uzbekistan had ground to a halt.
The decision underscores a severe logistical crisis plaguing the Pakistan-Afghanistan transit corridor, a vital artery for landlocked Central Asian nations. The current gridlock has left 847 vehicles carrying over 2,500 containers stuck at various points across Pakistan, with an additional 8,000 containers languishing at the port of Karachi. Customs sources said that all these containers were safe and secure with no possibility of cargo pilferage.
The roots of the current disruption trace back to October 13, when all transit trade through Pakistan was halted due to the aggression by neighboring India. While trade has since resumed, a massive backlog, compounded by systemic inefficiencies in a new tracking system, has created a perfect storm.
For Uzbekistan, a country reliant on this route—especially with Iran and Russia under sanctions—the delay was critical. The Uzbek Embassy in Islamabad intervened, formally requesting the urgent movement of 34 containers destined for UzAuto Motors.
Facing this economic emergency, Pakistan’s Ministry of Commerce granted a series of special exemptions. While 29 containers were requested to move by road via the Sost border under the TIR convention—a method not covered under existing rules—the most critical five containers were approved for air-lift, a mode of transport not envisioned in the standard Uzbekistan-Pakistan Transit Trade (UPTT) rules.
“Due to the current situation arising from the volume on the trans-Afghan corridor and the urgency pointed out by the Embassy of Uzbekistan, the Minister for Commerce has been pleased to provide exemptions,” a government notification stated, waiving the Import Policy Order 2022 to allow the exceptional measure.
The air-lift from JIAP is a logistically complex, largely manual process. Since the Karachi airport is not a officially notified exit station for transit trade, Pakistan’s automated customs system, WeBOC, cannot process the shipment. Every step, from the route change to final export documentation, requires manual endorsement by customs officials.
The operation, as per a detailed Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), involves:
Cross-Stuffing: The auto parts, which originated from various global destinations, are being repacked into air-worthy containers at a designated off-dock terminal under strict customs supervision.
Enhanced Security: Each repacked unit is verified for weight and quantity, fitted with seals and tracking devices, and transported to the airport under customs escort.
Manual Override: Customs staff at the airport perform 100% checks, verifying seals and cargo against manually amended documents before the chartered plane from Vietnam is loaded under their watch.
“This is a one-time special approval to prevent a major industrial crisis in a friendly country,” a senior customs official explained on condition of anonymity. “The system is not built for this, but we are making it work.”
While the Uzbek air-lift is a temporary fix, it highlights a much larger, systemic breakdown. A new, high-tech tracking system mandated for all transit cargo, intended to enhance transparency, is instead causing widespread delays just two months after its implementation.
In a formal submission to the Directorate General of Transit Trade (DGTT), transporters and bonded carriers outlined a litany of operational failures:
A critical shortage of tracking devices (CSDs and PMDs).
Poor-quality RFID seals that malfunction.
Frequent software crashes and connectivity issues.
A failure of core devices from different licensed companies to communicate, a key legal requirement.
“With only partial transit operations active, these issues are already causing port congestion,” the submission read. “The current system does not appear sustainable once full transit volumes resume.”
The trade community is now demanding an immediate review of the high service rates they are paying to tracking companies, arguing that the promised efficiency and reliability have not materialized. They warn that the resulting delays, detention charges, and increased operational costs are making the transit trade financially unviable.
The crisis poses a significant diplomatic and economic challenge for Pakistan. Central Asian countries like Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, which depend on the Pakistani corridor, are watching closely. Transporters, having incurred massive losses, now say they will charge importers for the time their shipments were stuck, potentially inflating the final cost of goods to a point where importers may abandon them altogether.
“This is a complicated situation and the government should handle it tactically to develop trade relations with Central Asian countries,” a trade analyst commented.
As the chartered plane carrying the auto parts departs Karachi for Tashkent, it carries not just manufacturing components, but the weight of a regional trade relationship hanging in the balance. The successful resolution of this single shipment is a testament to diplomatic goodwill, but it does little to clear the monumental logjam on the ground, where thousands of containers remain as a stark symbol of a system in crisis.