The Prime Minister Narendra Modi has welcomed the first Air Freight Corridor flight from Kabul to India. Prime Minister thanked Afghan President H.E. Ashraf Ghani for the initiative.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her deputy MJ Akbar received the plane in New Delhi. The inauguration of the first Afghanistan-India air corridor ceremony was held at the Kabul International Airport.
An aircraft packed with 60 tons of Afghan plants mostly asafoetida (hing) with medicinal uses landed in New Delhi.
This service bypasses the land crossing between the two countries via Pakistan. This development has come as a significant one, as Pakistan does not allow use of its land for trade between Afghanistan and India.
The dedicated air corridor was planned during the meeting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Ghani in Kabul in September 2016. The initiative has been taken to improve commerce between the two countries.
Afghanistan depends on the Pakistani port of Karachi for its foreign trade. It is allowed to send a limited amount of goods overland through Pakistan into India, but imports from India are not allowed along this route.
Border crossings are often closed as Afghan and Pakistani forces clash over the disputed border, and Afghan farmers have complained of fruit and other produce rotting without other options for shipping.
Next week, a second flight to India is scheduled to depart from the southern city of Kandahar, carrying 40 tons of dried fruit.
The volume of transaction between Afghanistan and India is some $500 million at present.
Presently, there are four to five flights operating daily between Afghanistan and India, bringing nearly 1,000 Afghans, many of them for medical treatment in Indian hospitals. India has been closely working with Afghanistan to create alternate and reliable access routes for the landlocked country.
In January 2015, India had announced its decision to allow Afghan trucks to enter the Indian territory through Attari land check-post for offloading and loading goods from and to Afghanistan. India is also working with Afghanistan and Iran for development of the Chabahar Port.
A trilateral transport and transit agreement based on sea access through Chabahar was signed between the three countries in Tehran in May 2016.
Currently major exports from India to Afghanistan are man-made filaments, apparels and clothing accessories, pharmaceutical products, cereals, man-made staple fibres, tobacco products, dairy and poultry products, coffee, tea, meat and spices.
Major imports from Afghanistan to India are fresh fruits, dried fruits, nuts, raisins, vegetables, oil seeds, precious, semi-precious stones.
