Afghanistan Hopes its Export to India would Jump.

Washington, (PTI) Afghanistan hopes export of its goods to India would significantly increase following the recently signed transit trade agreement between Kabul and Islamabad which comes into force later this month.

"We hope our exports would increase to India. Now we can export our goods through Wagah and that is much more economical for us to do," visiting Afghan Minister for Commerce and Industries Anwar-ul-Haq Ahady told PTI.

"As you know, we are not in a position to bring goods from India through Wagah, although we are hopeful that eventually that problem would be resolved," he said.

An agreement in this regard between Afghanistan and Pakistan was signed last month following several decades of negotiations.

The Minister said that Afghanistan would like to revisit the issue and make India a part of this agreement so that Afghanistan can import goods from India, which he argued would be economically beneficial to his country.

"We are not very satisfied with the current situation," he said.

However, the minister acknowledged that this is not going to be soon.

"We just concluded this agreement. Its implementation would begin November 28. So it will take a while," Ahady said.

The Minister said the sub-continent in general used to be Afghanistan''s largest trade partner and it remains so.

"India is a large market. We are a member of SAFTA (South Asia Free Trade Agreement) now. I think, the Afghan President would soon sign the SAFTA agreement. So we hope that trade would increase in the whole region and we will definitely benefit from much better access to the Indian market," Ahady said.

For now, Afghanistan would focus more on exporting dry fruits to India and fresh fruits to India.

"But in the longer term, we would try to find a niche in the manufacturing sector to produce goods that we can sell to the countries of the region including India," he said.

"Even though India has its own carpet industry, we think our carpet industry is competitive and we hope to be able to sell our carpets in the regional market as well," Ahady said.

Source : news.in.msn.com