Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) on Tuesday in Kabul, in a meeting organized for assessing Afghanistan agricultural products' export to regional countries, said Afghan traders can store their export goods in cold rooms provided by Uzbekistan on its soil. 

MIAL Minister, Nasir Ahmad Durani, said Uzbekistan has provided cold rooms and packaging facilities for Afghan traders at its Termez city where the traders can use the facilities for storing their fruit and vegetables to be exported to the Russian and Kazakhstan markets. 

Durani said Afghanistan fresh fruit and vegetable exports have increased and the new facilities in Uzbekistan will help Afghan traders to increase their exports. The traders will use the facilities until Afghanistan establishes its own. 

“Inside Afghanistan we do not have such facilities, so you can use those facilities in Uzbekistan and keep your products there. We can help you and we will work with Uzbekistan to provide the context for your storage and packaging there to export to Kazakhstan and Russia,” said Durani. 

Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Industries (ACCI) meanwhile said they have identified a few routes through which they will export the  products to the regional countries' markets. 

According to ACCI, efforts are under way to open a few air corridors between Afghanistan and a number of regional countries. 

“In the next 10 days we will make our first flight to Turkey and Dubai for exporting goods. ACCI and government are working on air corridors and expanding plans,” Atiqullah Nusrat, ACCI CEO said. 

Officials of the Commercial Horticulture and Agricultural Marketing Program, which is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), said good markets should be found for Afghan agricultural products in Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Russia. 

“Kazakhstan really is the doorway to Russia and Ukraine. Kazakh markets are big, but Russia and Ukraine are huge. So those are great markets. Just think about it, it is still cold and snowy up there in Russia. They don’t have vegetables and we have vegetables coming online now, we have potatoes and onions and the prices up there are good,” Gary Kuhn, founder of Roots of Peace organization said. 

ACCI officials meanwhile urged government to talk with Pakistan and resolve the problems in terms vegetable and fresh fruit exportation to that country.