ECONOMIC IDEAL – Kabul, Feb 24, IRNA – Chabahar transit corridor will change economic and political interactions; the sentence was written on banners of the ceremony of sending the first shipment to Chabahar to be exported to India from Afghanistan.
The first shipment comprising 200 tons of mung bean and 370 tons of talc stone left Afghanistan on Sunday to reach Chabahar on Tuesday.
The ceremony was attended by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, and ambassadors of India, Iran and Turkey.
Ghani said in the ceremony that the conditions of the region have changed and collaborations have become a pattern.
He thanked Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to have agreed on Chabahar and implemented the agreements.
Iran and India started discussion on Chabahar 18 years ago, Iran invested in Silk Road and India built Delaram-Zaranj.
He said that cooperation will change the map of the region, and landlocked Afghanistan will change into a transit intersection with the help of Iran and India.
Mohammad-Reza Bahrami, Iran's envoy in Kabul, said that Chabahar has increased its capacities in the recent years and new phases of the port will open in the near future.
Since the National Unity Government of Afghanistan took power in September 2014, economic issues and changing the country into transit intersection was put on the agenda. The country considers Chabahar as the city that changed Afghanistan's economic and political interaction in Central and Southern Asia.
Afghan authorities believe that Pakistan has been the only transit road to connect their country to open waters but over past 18 years, Pakistan has used the road for political purposes. Every once in a while that the relations between the two countries has conflicts and tensions, the way was blocked to Afghans and trade was challenged, that’s why Kabul was trying to have access to transit roads and to find other ways to reach open waters.
The Afghan president, accompanied by a high-ranking delegation, attended the ceremony in Nimruz Province, southwestern Afghanistan, to inaugurate the lucrative way for the country's export and import.
Afghanistan Government Deputy Spokesman Shah-Hossein Mortazavi said wrote in his social media page that Chabahar, another opportunity for Afghanistan for trade and transit will open today.
He added that Afghanistan's revenue has reached one billion dollars this year for the first time and will increase to two billion next year.
He also wrote that the measures taken in the past years have been unprecedented and that the way will develop more than before every day.
Khan Jan Alokozay, Deputy Chairman of the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Industries (ACCI), said in the ceremony that the opening of way is ‘a great opportunity for Afghanistan,’ and hoped that Chabahar and the new transit road would solve commerce problems of Afghanistan.
He has already said that with the inauguration of Chabahar Port, Afghanistan will get about 800 kilometers closer to open waters and export to India and world markets will be facilitated.
He had added that Pakistan would overcharge Afghan traders by $500 million each year and Chabahar would solve the problems.
The agreement on Chabahar was signed by presidents of Iran and Afghanistan and the Indian prime minister.
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