Afghanistan exported more than $580 million worth of fresh and dried fruits in the first six months of the current year, the office of the Taliban’s deputy chief minister for economic affairs said in a statement.
According to the statement, major buyers of Afghanistan’s produce included India, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Qatar, Iran, Iraq, and Tajikistan, among others.
The export basket ranged from dried fruits and nuts — including pistachios, pine nuts, walnuts, almonds, and raisins — to fresh produce such as pomegranates, grapes, apples, melons, figs, cherries, apricots, and pears, the statement said.
It added that the shipments were facilitated through a mix of land corridors and revived air cargo routes, helping reduce delivery times and improve access to regional and global markets.
The statement credited the growth to recent infrastructure improvements, including the expansion of Afghanistan’s railway system, the rehabilitation of key highways, and the reactivation of international air corridors. These measures, the Taliban said, have helped strengthen the country’s transit capacity, a critical need for a landlocked nation heavily dependent on cross-border trade.
This comes amidst trade tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan, followed by weeks of political and security issues the two dies face. Major border crossings between Afghanistan and Pakistan remain closed for the past 38 days.
In response to the border closures, Taliban’s deputy chief minister Abdul Ghani Baradar last week ordered a pause in pharmaceutics imports from Pakistan and called on all traders to find an alternative routes for their imports from Pakistan.
Taliban’s commerce minister said on Monday that at least 12,000 containers from Afghan traders are stuck in Karachi and other Pakistani ports.
