Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar chaired the commission on 28 July. Institutions were ordered to develop the port’s infrastructure, extend its operating hours in coordination with Tajikistan, and build a logistics centre providing customs, warehousing, loading and unloading services.
The public works ministry was directed to establish the railway infrastructure inside Afghanistan needed to operationalise the ECO railway corridor linking Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
The same meeting approved 37 standards and 12 testing methods covering agricultural products, foodstuffs, medicines, construction materials, telecommunications, electricity, chemicals, plastics and medical equipment. Standards are the unglamorous half of a trade corridor and the half that decides whether a consignment clears.
The Uzbek business forum closed the day before, at the other end of the same border. About 600 traders, investors and officials attended, more than 300 from each side, and 22 agreements were signed. Jamshid Khodjayev said Uzbekistan plans to buy 100,000 tonnes of Afghan cotton a year, and Nooruddin Azizi said he hoped annual bilateral trade would reach $5 billion.
The 22 agreements have still not been itemised and no tariff list has been published. The interdepartmental working group on cutting parity fees is due to meet by 10 August.
Kabul spent this week working both ends of its northern frontier: a tariff and cotton package with Tashkent in the west, a port and a rail corridor toward Dushanbe, Bishkek and Beijing in the east. Watch which one produces a published rate first.