Afghanistan Begins Exports to India Via Chabahar

Date: 24 February 2019 - 21:24

News ID: ۶۳۵۳۱

KABUL (Dispatches) -- Afghanistan began exports to India through an Iranian port Sunday, officials said, as the landlocked, war-torn nation turns to overseas markets to improve its economy.
Officials said 23 trucks carrying 57 tons of dried fruits, textiles, carpets and mineral products were dispatched from western Afghan city of Zaranj to Iran's Chabahar port. The consignment will be shipped to the Indian city of Mumbai.
At the inauguration of the new export route, President Ashraf Ghani said Afghanistan was slowly improving its exports in a bid to reduce its trade deficit.
"Chabahar port is the result of healthy cooperation between India, Iran and Afghanistan this will ensure economic growth," he said.
The Iranian port provides easy access to the sea to Afghanistan and India has helped develop the route to allow both countries to engage in trade bypassing Pakistan.
Last year the U.S. government granted an exception to certain U.S. sanctions that allowed development of Chabahar port as part of a new transportation corridor designed to boost Afghanistan’s economy and meet their needs of non-sanctionable goods such as food and medicines.
India has sent 1.1 million tons of wheat and 2,000 tons of lentils to Afghanistan through Chabahar.
Both countries established an air corridor in 2017. Afghan exports to India stood at $740 million in 2018, making it the largest export destination, officials said.
Meanwhile, Iran says it is working with its traditional partners such as China, Russia and India to circumvent the U.S. sanctions.
Chabahar on the coast of the Gulf of Oman is Iran's southernmost city. The port is also a key link in the International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC), a multi-modal network of ship, rail and road routes to move freight between India, Iran, Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Central Asia and Europe.
The port is easily accessible from India's west coast and New Delhi hopes to utilize its transit potentials to embolden the country's connectivity footprints including in CIS countries - a regional organization of 10 post-Soviet republics in Eurasia.
India took over the operations of the first phase of Shahid Beheshti Port in Chabahar in December 2018. Commercial operations began the same month with the arrival of a Cyprus-registered bulk carrier with 72,458 tons of corn cargo.
For landlocked Afghanistan, the corridor means opening the way for billions of dollars in trade and cutting the country’s dependence on foreigners for aid as well as stemming the illicit opium trade.
The U.S. is obviously opposed to the project, not just because of its entrenched hostility to Iran, but also its plans for a long-haul military stay in Afghanistan and its efforts to keep India and Russia as apart as possible.
U.S. President Donald Trump has also expressed an interest in Afghanistan’s massive mineral resources which India has already won the rights to exploit, including an iron mine. New Delhi seeks to use a planned railroad to Chabahar to export iron ore from the Hajigak iron mine in central Afghanistan.