Afghanistan Keen on Stronger Trade Ties with Sri Lanka

The Ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan H. E. M. Ashraf Haidari with UNIDO National Director Nawaz Rajabdeen

The Ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan M. Ashraf Haidari met up recently with the UNIDO National Director in Sri Lanka Nawaz Rajabdeen to discuss the possibilities of establishing business ties with Sri Lanka.

Ambassador Haidari was particularly interested in the industrial development taking place locally, and showed keenness in establishing bilateral trade initiatives between the two countries.  

He made inquiries for an import/export business delegation to be organised for B2B meetings with their local counterparts. The objective is to explore mutually beneficial opportunities between Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.

“The Ambassador is keen on securing trade links with us, and he also wanted to check on various projects that are currently taking place in Sri Lanka,” said Rajabdeen, “Meanwhile, we are interested in finding out how Ceylon tea is imported to Afghanistan at the moment. For a long time it has not been directly exported to Afghanistan due to heavy taxes, and tea from Dubai found a way to Afghanistan via road. So we want to promote value added tea, in collaboration with the Tea Board, and find out ways and means of exporting tea there.” 

He added that it had been a very healthy meeting as the Ambassador wanted to link up with the business community in Sri Lanka. 

Since Rajabdeen is also a senior executive member of the SAARC Chamber of Commerce, Ambassador Haidari expressed his interest in hosting a meeting for the SAARC members, during the next SAARC meeting to be held in Sri Lanka.