Weekly air corridor flights increased

Monitoring Desk

KABUL: Weekly flights through Afghanistan’s air corridors with foreign countries are being increased from the current six to 10 and so far 5,400 tons of commercial goods have been exported via these routes.

The Afghanistan-India Air Corridor was inaugurated by President Ashraf Ghani on Jun 19, 2017 when the first Delhi-bound cargo plane carrying 60 tons of medicinal plants left Kabul.

A second air corridor was inaugurated with Kazakhstan and it was followed by the inauguration of Kandahar-Delhi, Kabul-Turkey, and United Arab Emirate, Kabul-China, Kabul-Jeddah and EU countries.

Sameer Rasa, head of the Public Relations Office of the Senior Advisor to the President in Banking and Financial affairs, told a press conference in Kabul so far 320 flights had taken place through the air corridors, taking 5400 tons of goods including dried and fresh fruits, saffron and animal skins to Arab countries, India, China, Kazakhstan, Turkey and France.

According to him, the goods exported were of $100 million worth.

Currently, Afghanistan has six flights through these air corridors a week and in the upcoming days, the flights would be increased to ten, Rasa added.

He said an agreement had been reached with Kam Air Airlines on one flight a week to export pine nuts to China.

The Mazar-i-Sharif-London air corridor will be inaugurated on Wednesday, when a Turkish Airline flight will take five tons of dried fruits to London. (Pajhwok)