KANDAHAR CITY (Pajhwok): Despite a higher grape yield this year, farmers in southern Kandahar province could not export much of the fresh fruit due to the closure of the Chaman border with Pakistan.
Kandahar exported 11 tons of grapes this year, most of it going to the neighbouring country.The border closure for two weeks caused heavy financial losses to Kandahar fruit-growers.
Provincial chamber of commerce head, Haji Nasrullah Zahir, in an exclusive interview with Pajhwok Afghan News, said Kandahar’s grape yield was quite impressive this year, but only a limited quantity of the fruit could be exported.
He said 11 tons worth of $2.3 million of the fruit had been exported, mostly to Pakistan, some of it to India and a small quantity to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The grape season is ending but only two truckloads of it are transported to Pakistan daily. However, he said the export levelswere lower this year,.compared to the past. Pakistan blocked the Spind Boldak-Chaman highway at a time while farmers in Kandahar were collecting grapes.
Pakistan blocked the transit route on August 18 after Afghanprotestors torched its flag near the border crossing.However, the route was reopened as result of government efforts after 14 days of closure.
Zahir said most of gardeners had dried grapes for raisin due to limited exports. Growers and traders would suffer heavy financial losses if the government did not provide them alternative export sources, he warned.
Pakistan had always created problems for Afghan exports and it did not want Afghans to stand on their own feet, the trade leader alleged.
The governor’s house and the ministries concerned were repeatedly requested to airlift fruit exports, he said, urging the authorities to help traders obtain visas so they could travel to different countries and find market for their products.
All Afghan embassies abroad had commercial sections, but none of them had marketed local products, he complained.“I don’t know what is the government doing? People are waiting for it to take action for resolving our problems.”
Recent political tensions between India and Pakistan also affected Afghan traders. The market for Afghan products in Pakistan was seriously damaged and merchants sold their products cheaply, Zahir explained.
About the opening of the Chabahar port in Iran, he said exports from Afghanistan through that facility were yet to begin. Opening the port was just a symbolic act, he commented.
Currently Afghanistan’s fruits were exported from Pakistan and India to China, he maintained. Traders asked the Chinese ambassador during a recent visitto Kandahar to provide a direct export route for Afghan products.
In response, the ambassador told traders it was the responsibility of the Afghan government to sign an agreement with China in this regard.
However, the government was yet to take action, he deplored, recalling 80 cargo wagons recently arrived from China in the northern region of the country. But they returned empty due to the absence of an export agreement with China.
Fresh Fruit Traders’ Association headHaji Nanai Agha blamed the losses suffered by farmers and traders on what he called government negligence.He demanded alternative routes for Afghanistan’s exports, calling for reducing reliance on Pakistan.
Agha claimed Afghan merchants and gardeners had suffered losses worth 12 million afghanis every day when the transit trade route was recently blocked by Pakistan.
mds/mud
