Tuesday March 27-2013
Kabul (BNA) Establishment of railway link between the three neighboring countries of Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan ratifies comprehensive efforts of government of Afghanistan and implementation of the project highly support trade and commerce relations between the regional countries including ultra-regional nations and for this propose, recently a memorandum of understanding was signed between leaders of the three states in the Turkmen capital Ashgabat.
For evaluation of the project and impacts on regional economic and trade ties, our correspondent has discussed the topic with Engineer Noor Gul Mangal, technical deputy of ministry of public works. Based on the MOU signed between leaders of the three countries the rail project will connect the three countries constituting Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. The rail track will be started from Hatamarat region to wards Yamnaz and onward to Sher Khan Bandar and will connect to Tajikistan and nearly 450 km of the railway line will be established inside Afghan territory. It`s said that technical survey of the project is initiated within the couple of months and completion of the project will support the three neighbors to exchange merchandize easily and in large scale. However, president Karzai had signed an MOU with his Turkmen counterpart last year for establishment of such a project, but practical works weren’t started on the project and the recent agreement signed between heads of states from the three countries for implementation of the rail link help these countries to intensify their economic and trade relations in the future, said technical deputy of ministry of public works Noor Gul Mangal. Evaluating economic benefits of the project, economic analyst Syed Masood said that implementation of the project further enhances commerce relations between the three countries including attraction of international investments and political harmony between the regional nations adding that the project also facilitate our business community and companies to seek better sale markets for our domestic products and expand our export and import level. Because the railway link helps Afghanistan to get access to the central Asian markets and even to the European market. Economic analyst Syed Masood added that the project also support Afghanistan to introduce its transit location to the world and signing of the agreement could be entitled as one of the great achievements of the current year 1392 and implementation of the project will connects Afghanistan with rest of the economically important countries same as China, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and onward to Asian region and eastern Europe.
Responding to a query regarding trade level between Afghanistan and Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, economic analyst Syed Masood said that our import graph is much higher than our export level to these countries and currently Afghanistan allocate huge financial expenditures annually for importing fuel material including electricity from the neighboring countries and current statistics show that Afghanistan annually imports electricity and oil with the cast of nearly $2billon while overall cast of our import reaches to $6 billon and on exchange Afghanistan`s export if only $ 300 million annually. The memorandum of understanding for establishment of railway line between Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan signed at a time after a railway link with the length of 77 kilometers which connects Hairatan port to Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Balkh province has already been established.
