Three days ago, a joint government and private sector delegation led by Nooruddin Azizi, acting minister of commerce and industry, arrived in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, for talks with Uzbek officials on expanding trade, facilitating transit and solving problems of Afghan businessmen.

The Afghan delegation said that in their meetings with the Uzbek authorities, detailed discussions were held on the problems of traders, business relations, and facilitating transit between the two countries, they said Uzbek officials promised serious cooperation in this matter.

According to members of the delegation, a new chapter of business cooperation between the two countries will begin.

“To better export goods, we need to export them via Uzbekistan to Kazakhstan; they also talked about customs tariffs and the fees of transportation because we had a problem in this issue; fees were high,” said Mirwais Hajizada, a member of the delegation.

Economic experts say that in order to expand trade relations between Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, the two countries need to work on a joint investment plan.

“Nowadays, economic relations are very important, if we don’t have relations, neighboring countries would face problems and Afghanistan, too,” said Taj Mohammad Talash, an economic analyst.

Meanwhile, Uzbekistan will host a high-level international conference on Afghanistan at the end of July, in which representatives of the Islamic Emirate will also participate.