TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, January 12. Trade volume between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan has increased more than six times in 2023, Trend reports.
According to the Afghan Ministry of Industry and Commerce, trade turnover between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan amounted to $266 million in 2023, which is 6.04 times more year-on-year ($44 million).
Afghanistan's exports totaled $27 million last year. Uzbekistan mainly supplies electricity, flour, chemical fertilizers, oil, and gas.
Afghanistan's Chamber of Commerce and Industry also plans to strengthen relations with neighboring countries by establishing ties with China through Uzbekistan.
The data from Uzbekistan's Statistics Agency shows that trade turnover between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan totaled $784 million from January through November 2023. Uzbekistan's exports exceeded $774 million, while imports exceeded $9.5 million. The trade turnover amounted to $759.9 million by the end of 2022.
Earlier, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan discussed the acceleration of the implementation of the Uzbekistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan railway construction project.
The administrations of Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan signed a road map for the building of the Termez-Mazar-I-Sharif-Kabul-Peshawar railway in February 2021.
According to the calculations of the participants in the project, with a preliminary cost of about $5 billion, the new transport corridor with a transit potential of up to 20 million tons of cargo should connect the countries of Europe, Russia, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and further the states of Southeast Asia.