ISLAMABAD, July 25 (Xinhuanet) -- Pakistan and Afghanistan have decided to take effective steps to further improve business to business interaction and enhance bilateral trade through further streamlining of procedures, holding single country exhibitions and establishment of joint chambers of commerce and industry.

    The two countries have also decided to constitute a Pak-Afghan Joint Customs Committee, which will examine the issues relating totrade and transit trade and submit proposals for appropriate solutions.

    The decisions were taken during the 5th Session of Pakistan-Afghanistan Joint Economic Commission held on July 23 and 24 in Kabul, according to a news release issued here Monday.

    The session was co-chaired by Salman Shah, Advisor to PakistaniPrime Minister on Finance and Revenue and Anwar-ul-Haq Ahadi, Afghan minister of finance.

    Both delegations acknowledged deep historical, cultural and political relations between the two countries and hoped that the current momentum in translating excellent political relations intocommercial and economic interaction would further cement the existing bilateral relations.

    The Afghan delegation acknowledged that transportation and handling of Afghan transit goods have considerably improved duringthe past three years.

    They requested to further streamline the handling mechanism in order to further facilitate transit transportation.

    Both sides reviewed trade figures and expressed their deep satisfaction over the encouraging trends in the bilateral trade.

    Bilateral trade has grown manifold since 2001. It reached 540 million US dollars in 2003-2004 and 1.2 billion dollars in 2004-2005. Enditem