The documents were signed at an Afghan-Uzbek trade forum in Kabul attended by Nooruddin Azizi and Jamshid Khodjayev, with provincial governors and several hundred private-sector representatives. Twenty-two agreements were reported, worth more than $200 million in total, covering transit, energy, agriculture, mining and investment. The stated trade target stays at $5 billion.
Cotton is the measurable part. Ten thousand tonnes have moved on a trial basis, and Uzbekistan has said it would buy a further 100,000 tonnes.
Transit moved in parallel and on a date. Transport Minister Ilhom Makhkamov met Muhammad Fazil Mazlum in Kabul on 26 July, and the two sides agreed to form an interdepartmental working group by 10 August on cutting parity fees. Tashkent and Kabul discussed city-level cooperation, with the Kabul side presenting 234 investment projects, 168 of them in construction, and Fergana region is opening a trade house in Kabul.
The published figures still do not reconcile. Bakhtar puts Afghan exports to Uzbekistan at $150 million over the past year, with $111 million recorded so far in 2026. The Taliban side puts bilateral trade at $1.6 billion, Tashkent’s stated target is $5 billion, and the signed documents come to $200 million, which is smaller than every one of those numbers.
A parity fee cut agreed by 10 August would be the first figure here that a trader could feel at a border post. Watch 10 August.