Afghanistan’s Minister of Industry and Commerce, Nooruddin Azizi, will be on a 5-day visit to India from tomorrow. Accompanied by a large delegation, the minister will be meeting his Indian counterpart, Piyush Goyal, during the visit. This is the second cabinet-rank trip from Afghanistan’s Islamic Emirate govt to Delhi in almost a month’s time. The trip follows last month’s landmark visit by Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and is designed to translate political goodwill into concrete trade. In a dramatic gesture timed for Azizi’s arrival, Afghanistan’s national carrier Ariana Afghan Airlines this week slashed cargo rates on the Delhi route by more than half, effective immediately, and offered exclusively to India.
“Earlier, Ariana was charging $2 per kilogram for cargo between Delhi and Kabul. Now, it has been instructed to reduce the rate to 80 cents per kg from Delhi to Kabul and $1 per kg from Kabul to Delhi,” said Mawlawi Bakhturahman Sharafat, the airline’s director general. He described the move as unprecedented, emphasizing that “no such discounts have been given to any other foreign routes” and that “the special discounts are only for India routes. This shows the strong relationship between the 2 countries.”
During his October visit, Foreign Minister Muttaqi had already announced new dedicated cargo flights linking Delhi-Kabul, Amritsar-Kabul, and Amritsar-Kandahar, and voiced strong support for the Indian-backed Chabahar port project, calling it “advantageous for us.” He also met Indian investors and appealed to them to invest in his country, which offers a number of opportunities.
The visit comes as Afghanistan courts India, Iran to replace crumbling trade ties with Pakistan and build a sanctions-resistant economic corridor through Iran’s Chabahar port. With the Torkham border with Pakistan remaining closed after Islamabad’s strikes on Afghanistan, Kabul is routing ever more trade through Chabahar and direct air links with India. Bilateral trade with Iran has surged past $1.6 billion in the last six months, eclipsing volumes with Pakistan.
With India’s embassy in Kabul reopened and a fresh U.S. sanctions waiver for Chabahar in hand, New Delhi can step in to fill gaps left by Pakistani suppliers Meanwhile, Pakistan, whose economy requires regular IMF bailouts, stands to lose roughly $2 billion in annual exports to its western neighbor, its third-largest market after the United States and China, along with lucrative transit fees from Central Asian cargo.
