Afghanistan holds agricultural expo in Mumbai to boost trade ties with India

Afghanistan on Friday held an event here to highlight "Made in Afghanistan" products in a bid to attract Indian investment to their nation.

57 Afghan companies from the agricultural sector took part in the event, which was inaugurated by Muqadessa Yourish, the Deputy Minister of Afghanistan's Ministry of Industry and Commerce.

Speaking to ANI, Yourish highlighted that Afghanistan sought to attract investment to their nation to boost its economy.

"There are two sides of business - there is trade and there is investment...We're doing really great on the trade aspect of business but we're struggling to bring in investment to the country. There is a lot of potential, we have the energy sector, the mining sector but security has always been an issue when businesses have shown interest to come and invest in Afghanistan," she said.

"Going forward, we would like to focus not only on trade but the investment component of the business as well. Our Indian partners have certainly shown interest on that front," the leader added.

The event acted as an apt platform for various companies in terms of increasing business ties and was able to attract crowds of customer and businessmen, the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, New Delhi, stated.Speaking on trade through the Chabahar Port, Yourish said: "Every transit route, when you just inaugurate them, they do have their challenges. With Chabhar particularly, one of the biggest issues on our side has been that currently there is no Afghan company that owns a shipping line, So the cost of shipping has been very high for our traders."

She further highlighted that an Indian marine line company was interested in doing a joint investment with Afghan partners to find a solution to this problem being faced by Afghanistan.

Naseem Sharifi, the Consul General of Afghanistan's Consulate General in Mumbai was optimistic about the outcome of the event. Speaking to ANI, he also added that Chabahar is making the export of a lot of items to India possible.

"The overall goal is to increase the volume of export from Afghanistan to India and then again import Indian goods to Afghanistan," he said.