Herat fruit lacks foreign markets

The Chamber of Commerce and Investment said that within the past year, more than 700,000 tons of fresh fruits and vegetables have been exported from Afghanistan to various countries, but farmers and exporters in Herat province said that the export of fresh fruits from the province has stopped.

“We have small markets; they are old markets where the fruit is sold with many problems. If international markets and cold storage areas are built, and fruit is processed and packaged, then we will be able to export to neighboring countries,” said Ahmad Shah Haq Dost, representative of Herat's fresh fruit importers guild.

“We don’t have a standard market to process and package the fresh fruit and then export,” said Aziz Ahmad Mohammadi, the head of a fresh fruit exporting company.

The head of the Chamber of Commerce and Investment of the country, in a meeting with the exporters of fresh fruits and vegetables in Herat, talked about the increase in the export of fresh fruits and vegetables.

“In two years, we had almost a hundred percent increase in exports. Last year we exported almost 700,000 tons of fruits and vegetables, this year we want our fruits and vegetables exports to reach one million tons,” said Mohammad Yonis Momand, head of the Chamber of Commerce and Investment.

The Chamber of Commerce and Investment said cold storage will be built by the private sector to store fresh fruits and vegetables in the western region.

Herat is an agricultural province where hundreds of thousands of tons of fresh fruits and vegetables are harvested every year.

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