Where we work · Sialkot
We are not in Sialkot. Your export still has to leave through Karachi or Lahore.
Shafiq Traders · Updated 14 September 2026
Shafiq Traders has no office in Sialkot. Sialkot is an export city before it is an import one — surgical instruments, sports goods and leather goods going out more than raw material coming in — and it has its own dry port at Sambrial, run by the Sialkot Dry Port Trust under the Collectorate of Customs, Sambrial, plus its own cargo terminal at Sialkot International Airport. Both handle a great deal of the city's own trade directly, and we are not licensed at either. What we clear is the other end: the export declaration and the shipment at Karachi Port, Port Qasim or Karachi airport, and the import side — leather, chemicals, plastics, machinery for the mills — landing there or moving upcountry to our office at the Lahore dry port. If your export is already booked through Sambrial or SIAL, you do not need us for that leg. If it is going to move through Karachi or Lahore instead, that is where we sit.
An export city more than an import one
Surgical instruments, sports goods and leather goods are Sialkot's trade, and most of it moves outward. What comes in is the material behind that: steel and stainless bar stock for the instrument makers, leather and tanning chemicals, rubber and synthetic material for footballs and other sports goods, and the machinery that runs those workshops.
None of it has to touch our office to reach a Sialkot buyer or come from a Sialkot supplier. A container or an air shipment can be declared and cleared at Sambrial or at Sialkot International Airport without ever involving Karachi or Lahore. Where we come in is when the shipment is already routed through one of our own stations, or when an exporter wants an inland file at Lahore instead of Sambrial and the container moves under bond to the seaport for loading.
Where a Sialkot shipment can clear
| Station | Run by | What that means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Sialkot Dry Port, Sambrial | Sialkot Dry Port Trust, under the Collectorate of Customs, Sambrial | The city's own inland station, for containerised import and export. We are not licensed here. |
| Sialkot International Airport | Sialkot International Airport Limited, a privately built and operated airport | Its own cargo terminal and clearance centre, for air freight straight out of the city. We are not licensed here either. |
| Karachi Port, Port Qasim or Karachi airport | Where this firm's head office sits | Where we clear the shipment if it moves by sea or air through Karachi instead. |
| Lahore Dry Port, Mughalpura | Where this firm's original office sits, since 1987 | Where we file an export declaration inland, and move the container to Karachi under bond for loading. |
How we clear a Sialkot shipment that comes to us
This is the route when it is not going through Sambrial or SIAL.
Booked for Karachi or filed at Lahore
The shipment is either booked to move by sea or air through Karachi, or declared for export at our Lahore office and moved under bond from there.
The Goods Declaration
Filed on the Pakistan Single Window, whether the shipment is an export leaving the country or an import landing for a Sialkot workshop.
Movement under bond, if it started inland
A container declared for export at Lahore moves to the loading port with the duty position settled and the goods still under bond, per Section 121 of the Customs Act, 1969.
Assessment and, for imports, release
Exports are examined against the declaration on file; imports are assessed, and duty is settled before release.
On to the vessel, or on to you
An export loads onto the booked vessel or flight. An import moves on to your workshop, transport arranged through a carrier.
Companies we have cleared for
Sialkot's exporters and workshops sit alongside the rest of the register — cleared through Karachi or Lahore, the same as any other file.
Comfort Knitwears · H. Sheikh Noor-ud-Din & Sons · Z-KAP (Zulfiqar Knitting & Processing Mills)
We are not going to claim a presence in Sialkot we don't have. Sambrial and SIAL exist precisely so Sialkot's exporters do not need to send a file to Karachi or Lahore, and for a shipment that suits those stations, that is the better route. What we offer is the other choice — clearing at the seaport directly, or an inland export file from Lahore — for whoever decides that suits their shipment better, and we will say so rather than talk you out of the local option.
Questions
What Sialkot exporters ask us
Contact
Tell us what is coming.
Give us the product, the port and roughly when the vessel is due, and we will tell you what the clearance involves and what it will cost.