ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb met top officials from Dubai-based logistics giant DP World and discussed boosting trade through cooperation in infrastructure and logistics frameworks, Pakistani state media reported on Wednesday. 

The meeting comes days after DP World, in collaboration with Pakistan’s National Logistics Corporation, launched a feeder service to transport shipping containers from Dubai to Karachi. DP World operates in over 75 countries, specializing in port operations, terminal management and logistics services. Feeder services use smaller vessels to transport containers between regional ports, reducing shipping costs and transit time. 

Earlier this month, Pakistani officials and DP World also finalized terms for a freight corridor project from Karachi Port to the Pipri Marshalling yard in southern Pakistan.

“Aurangzeb met with Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of DP World Rizwan Soomar and Deputy CEO and Chief Financial Officer Yuvraj Narayan in Davos, Switzerland,” Radio Pakistan reported after the meeting. 

“During the meeting, discussions focused on enhancing infrastructure and logistical frameworks in Pakistan to boost trade,” the report said, adding that the finance minister assured DP World it wanted to advance business-to-business and business-to-government collaboration with the company. 

The UAE is Pakistan’s third-largest trading partner after China and the United States, and a major source of foreign investment, valued at over $10 billion in the last 20 years, according to the UAE foreign ministry. It is also home to more than a million Pakistani expatriates.

In January last year, Pakistan and the UAE signed multiple agreements worth more than $3 billion for cooperation in railways, economic zones and infrastructure.

The agreements cover the development of a dedicated freight corridor, multi-modal logistics park, and freight terminals. 

Under the agreements, DP World will carry out infrastructure improvement at Qasim International Container Terminal, Pakistan’s leading trade gateway. The Emirati firm also plans to develop an economic zone near the terminal.

DP World is also involved in the Karachi Freight Corridor, an infrastructure project in Pakistan aimed at improving the movement of freight from the port city of Karachi, Pakistan’s largest, to various parts of the country. The project involves the construction of a dedicated double-track corridor and other related facilities that will run 50 km from Karachi port to the Pipri Marshalling yard.

ISLAMABAD: An armed crackdown in the northwestern Pakistani district of Kurram that has been marred by sectarian clashes since November continued on Wednesday, with state media reporting that security forces had confiscated a large cache of illegal weapons in a search and clearance operation. 

Kurram, a tribal district of around 600,000 where federal and provincial authorities have traditionally exerted limited control, has frequently experienced violence between its Sunni and Shiite communities over land and power. Travelers to and from the area often ride in convoys escorted by security officials.

The latest feuding started on Nov. 21 when gunmen ambushed a vehicle convoy and killed 52 people, mostly Shiites. The assault triggered road closures and other measures that have disrupted people’s access to medicine, food, fuel, education, and work and created a humanitarian crisis in the area, where authorities say at least 150 people have been killed in two months of feuding.

Media widely reported on Monday that Pakistani security forces had launched a “large-scale” operation targeting militants in the restive northwestern district bordering Afghanistan, after unidentified gunmen ambushed and burned aid trucks on Friday, killing up to 10 people. 

“In a joint search and clearance operation by the district administration, police and security forces in the conflict-affected area of Bagan, district Kurram, a significant number of illegal weapons were recovered,” the Associated Press of Pakistan said. “Strict action would continue against elements involved in any unlawful activities.”

Violence has persisted in the region despite a peace agreement signed between the warring tribes on Jan. 1 under which both sides had committed to demolishing bunkers and handing over heavy weapons to authorities within two weeks.

Feuding tribes have been engaging in battles with machine guns and heavy weapons, isolating the remote, mountainous Kurram region. Parachinar is the main town in Kurram and a main road that connects the town to Peshawar, the provincial capital of the larger Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has been blocked since sectarian fighting began in November. 

Provincial and federal authorities have been supplying relief goods and evacuating the injured and ailing from Kurram to Peshawar via helicopters since last month.

Shiite Muslims dominate parts of Kurram, although they are a minority in the rest of Pakistan, which is majority Sunni. The area has a history of sectarian conflict.