Afghanistan urges India to invest in agro industries:

Afghan Minister Abdul Qadeer Jawad, today urged Indian investors to cash in the opportunities offered by Afghanistan in the areas of agriculture manufacturing, food processing, packaging and trading & marketing.

Abdul Qadeer Jawad, Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock of Afghanistan, today urged Indian investors to cash in on the opportunities offered by Afghanistan in the areas of agriculture manufacturing, food processing, packaging and trading & marketing to boost the Afghan economy and
contribute to economic prosperity, peace and stability in the region.

Addressing the Conference & Exhibition on ‘Made in Afghanistan’ under the aegis of Trade, Commerce and Investment Opportunities –CBM of the ‘Heart of Asia’ process for Rebuilding Afghanistan, Jawad said that developing business to business relationships between Afghan producers and suppliers of high quality fresh and dried fruits and Indian retail and direct wholesale markets for these products would be critical for sustaining private sector business relationships during the years ahead.

The Conference was organized by FICCI in association with the Government of India and USAID.

The Afghanistan Minister said that in the agriculture manufacturing and agro processing sector, the Afghan Government was looking for potential
investors in areas such as processing of dry fruits and nuts, processing and cotton yarn production, establishment of cold chains and supply chains while in packaging the potential areas were fresh and dry fruit boxes, jars, lids, tins, glass and plastic bottles, tetra pack packaging among others. In trading and marketing, investment opportunities exist in transport and logistics services such as cargo villages inside airports, trade partnership building services, marketing and branding services.

He said that the Afghan Ministry of Agriculture in coordination with the civil aviation authority and the Customs Directorate was working towards establishing a cargo village at Kabul Airport.

The cargo village, he said, would further help in trade facilitation. Of the many features of the cargo village, one is the establishment of a huge cold storage facility with a capacity of over 10,000 metric tonnes. “This year we have started working on establishing agriculture industrial parks that will give agriculture traders and investors an opportunity to conduct all agriculture related activities such as packaging, sorting, processing and trading under one umbrella.

Amar Sinha, Secretary, Economic Relations, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, observed that the time was ripe to shift from aid to trade-based model of cooperation with Afghanistan and reaffirmed India’s commitment to bring about integrated growth of the region that takes along all its neighbours. As a region what we owe is capacity building and integration of Afghan youth in the national-building process.

Source: Rural Marketing. Date: Jul 19th, 2016

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