KABUL: The 10th joint exhibition showcasing Afghan and Iranian products kicked off on Tuesday in western Herat province. The exhibition at the Mawlana Jalaluddin Mohammad Balkhi Hall in Herat City was visited by a number of local officials and a delegation from Iran.
Herat governor Mohammad Asif Rahimi welcomed the opening of the exhibition and said such events if opened in any part of the country could play a positive role in promotion of business relations between Afghanistan and Iran. He asked the Iranian delegation to pave the ground for more such exhibitions displaying Afghanistan products.
“I witnessed the inauguration of Khawaf Railway, the Chabahar port and other developments in the past one year that strengthened relations between the two neighbors,” he said. Ali Reza Rashidyan, the governor for Razavi Khorasan province of Iran, who visited the exhibition, said that positive movements could be felt in macroeconomic policies of the two neighboring countries.
“Our imports from Herat province of Afghanistan to Razavi Khorasan province of Iran doubled in the past six months of the current year,” he said.
Close cooperation among economic, agriculture and industrial activists of the two countries would help identify the needs of each other and offer standard products, he said. Rashidyan added that the opening of such exhibitions would pave the ground for more cooperation among traders of Afghanistan and Iran.
According to Iran’s customs, business deals between Iran and Afghanistan reach nearly two billion US dollars a year. Most of the deals include Iran’s exports to Afghanistan. Ali Khaksar, the organizer of the exhibition, said products of 45 companies from Iran and 15 companies from Herat were on the display at the show.
Different types of products, such as electronics, construction materials, home appliances, food items, cosmetics, printing materials, packaging tools and birds’ medicines were displayed in the exhibition, he said.
