New Delhi: Afghanistan’s Commerce and Industry Minister Alhaj Nooruddin Azizi on Monday said that Kabul wants to boost bilateral trade with India to ‘much more’ than $1 billion.
Azizi who was on a six-day visit to India met External Affairs minister S Jaishankar and MoS Commerce Jitin Prasada and interacted with Indian businesses.
The major takeaways of the meeting according to the report include a commercial attache in India, ‘five-year tax breaks for Indian business investing in Afghanistan’s gold mining, and air cargo corridor between India and Afghanistan’, The Indian Express reported.
Afterwards interacting with media at the Afghan embassy in the capital city, Azizi said a commercial attache from Afghanistan is likely to arrive in Delhi in a month, adding that both side show ‘strong will’ regarding private investment.
Inviting investment to his country, Azizi pointed to significant opportunities existing in the country in areas including mining, agriculture, health and pharmaceuticals, information technology, energy and textiles.
Wooing Indian business, he said that Afghanistan will offer five-year tax breaks to firms investing in areas including gold mining.
‘There is a huge potential in Afghanistan. You will not find a lot of competitors. You will also receive tariff support, and we will be able to give you land. The five-year tax exemption will be given to companies which may be interested to invest in new sectors,’ Azizi reportedly said.
In the event of Indian companies importing machinery for investment, his government will charge only 1 per cent tariff, Azizi said adding ‘Gold mining will definitely require the technical and professional team or professional companies. So initially, we are requesting that you send your team, they can do the research, they can do the exploration initially, and then they can start work. However, the condition is that we will expect it to be processed in the country so jobs can be created’.
Seeking Indian government to remove ‘minor’ hurdles, he said ‘There are some minor hurdles which really affect the overall process, like visa, air corridor, banking transactions. So, these have to be sorted out to improve bilateral trade and investment’.