Torkham Border Closure Has Cost Traders Rs 400 Billion, Local Businesses Say

When a border crossing closes, the damage is measured in more than trade statistics. At Torkham, the main crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan, local traders say the shutdown has already cost up to Rs 400 billion — and the human cost is piling up just as fast.

The numbers from the ground are stark. Around 2,500 taxi drivers and 3,000 labourers in Landi Kotal, the town that lives off the crossing, have lost their income. Shops and hotels that depend on the constant flow of trucks, drivers and travellers are struggling to stay open. Cross-border trade itself is at a standstill.

Torkham sits in the Khyber district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and it is one of the most important land routes between the two countries — and beyond them. For Afghanistan, a landlocked country, Pakistan's ports and roads are a lifeline for imports and exports. For Pakistan, the crossing is a gateway for trade with Afghanistan and onward to Central Asia. When it closes, supply chains on both sides seize up: consignments stall, orders are cancelled, perishable goods are lost and contracts break.

Landi Kotal's economy is built almost entirely around the border. The taxi drivers who ferry travellers, the labourers who load and unload cargo, the hotels that house drivers waiting for clearance, the small shops selling fuel, food and spare parts — every one of them depends on the crossing being open. A prolonged closure does not pause their expenses; rents, loans and family costs continue while income stops.

The Rs 400 billion figure, cited by local traders, covers the wider commercial damage. Figures like this are estimates rather than audited accounts, but they point to a disruption far larger than a local inconvenience — this is one of the region's busiest trade arteries, and its closure ripples through wholesalers, transporters and markets in both countries.

There is also a strategic dimension that international observers watch closely. Border closures between Pakistan and Afghanistan are rarely only about administration; they tend to reflect the temperature of a relationship that has been strained for years, with each side at times using trade and transit as leverage. Every closure reminds the region how fragile its connectivity is — and how much ordinary people pay for it.

For now, the question in Landi Kotal is simpler than geopolitics: when will the gates open again? Thousands of livelihoods are waiting for the answer.

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