The federal government of Pakistan has banned the export of all kinds of precious and semiprecious stones, said Atif Rashid Khawaja, who chairs the Pakistan-based Pakistan-based Exporters Association (Peshawar) -based Pakistani Exporters Association. Hawaii called these measures unfair.
"The ban was set by the Ministry of Trade on January 23, this unfair decision was taken without consulting exporters," the ban on Plus News agency, according to Rapaport, reported.
Although this restriction stopped exports across the country, most of the affected exporters work in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, since Peshawar is a shopping center.
According to Hawaii, more than 3,000 exporters have actually lost their business, which they have been engaged in for the past 60 years.
A huge number of precious stones, such as rubies, emeralds, sapphires, quartz, tourmaline, aquamarine, peridot, were seized by Pakistani customs at Peshawar airport after the ban began.
Pakistan is one of the leading exporters of precious and semiprecious stones (except diamonds) to the world market, especially in the USA, Thailand and Europe. The ban was introduced after the government issued a regulatory order to prevent the smuggling of gold into India.
Khawaja noted that the government's measures were aimed at limiting the export of gold jewelry and should not affect the export of precious stones, however, according to him, the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) began to apply the regulation regarding the export of precious stones .
Officials of the Ministry of Trade rejected the association's claims and stated that the regulation applies to the export of precious stones.