New railway corridor to link Afghanistan and China

Representatives from Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, China and Kyrgyzstan signed an agreement in Tashkent on Friday to establish a new economic railway corridor to boost trade for Afghanistan.

A trial period of three months will see freight trains from China deliver goods to Afghanistan via Kyrgyzstan and then Uzbekistan. The trains will stop in Balkh province, Afghanistan’s Railway Authority (ARA) confirmed Sunday.

Exports of Afghan goods will follow the same route to China.

ARA said the corridor will have a multi-modal transport system including trucks but the focus will be on transporting goods via rail.

In the past, goods have been mostly transported in trucks overland to and from China taking roughly two months. But with the new railway corridor in place,the traveling time is expected to be only two weeks, said ARA.

The authority said with the reduced delivery time, prices of goods will also hopefully come down and more job opportunities for Afghans will be created.

ARA also stated that import and export tariffs would be reduced significantly on goods being transported by rail.