Twenty-three tons of Kandahar-grown pomegranates were exported Kazakhstan, said the Taliban-run Ministry of Commerce on Monday.
The ministry said the shipment was sent via the Torghundi border crossing to Almaty, Kazakhstan.
The ministry noted that, despite having yet to secure formal recognition from countries including Kazakhstan, trade relations with regional nations continue.
Kazakhstan recently removed the Taliban from its list of terrorist organizations, a move intended to facilitate economic ties with Afghanistan.
The Kandahar office of the Taliban’s Ministry of Information and Culture recently reported that 6,015 tons of pomegranates have been exported from the province this year, with a total value of $3.868 million.
At a recent Kazakhstan-Afghanistan trade forum in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Yerbol Taszhurekov, underscored the importance of agricultural cooperation, citing a $567.5 million trade volume between the two countries last year. Kazakh exports to Afghanistan accounted for $547 million of that amount. Taszhurekov noted that closer trade ties could push mutual trade to $1 billion.
However, Kazakhstan’s wheat exports to Afghanistan have declined, dropping by 53 percent in 2023 compared to the previous year, with only 69,000 tons exported in the first eight months of this year. Overall, bilateral trade between Kazakhstan and Afghanistan reached $330.7 million in the first eight months of 2023.
