nCa Report
The 3-day exhibition of the goods and services of Afghanistan started on 4 March 2024 in Ashgabat. The joint Turkmen-Afghan business forum and several side events were also held. This is a landmark mega-event for the business community of Afghanistan.
The acting minister for commerce and industry of Afghanistan, Noor Uddin Azizi, is leading the Afghan delegation. There are about 275 members in the Afghan delegation including more than 230 heads or senior representatives of the companies and other entities. There are 15 women entrepreneurs in the delegation.
The Turkmen side has accorded the highest importance to this mega event. All of the deputy prime ministers of Turkmenistan were present at the opening ceremony, toured the exhibition, and attended the business forum.
Later in the day, the national leader of Turkmenistan, Arkadag Berdimuhamedov visited the exhibition.
At nCa, we are covering this landmark event in several reports, to highlight the noteworthy aspects of this well-prepared and well-attended occasion.
We have already reported on the speech of the Afghan minister at the business forum where, among other things, he assured that the construction of the canal at the Amudarya River for the irrigation requirements of Afghanistan would not affect the interests of Turkmenistan.
We have published a report on the participation of the women entrepreneurs of Afghanistan in the exhibition.
This report is just a ‘folder’ piece, to underline that all of our material related the exhibition and forum, already published and to be published under separate headlines, is part of our comprehensive coverage of this amazing event.
At the exhibition, the banking sector, the steel and metals industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the oil and gas industry, the aviation and logistics sector, the food and beverages industry, the gemstones and precious metals industry, the textile, handicraft and carpets sectors of Afghanistan are attractively represented.
We will cover some of them in our separate reports.
Nearly all of the people at the stalls can speak English and/or Russian, and Turkmen languages. This makes it possible for the visitors to engage in direct conversation without the need of an interpreter.
The people at the stalls have the knack to engage in easy conversation with the visitors. Their pitch is backed by interesting and informative brochures and pamphlets.
Speaking at the forum, the head of the department of agrarian reforms of the Ministry of Agriculture of Turkmenistan, Kerim Saparov, said that his country was carrying out systematic work on uninterrupted water supply to agriculture and, at the same time, the efficient use of water resources and the introduction of water-saving technologies.
He said that Turkmenistan has 38.5 million hectares of natural pastures, which serve as the main source of feed for cattle and camels. In order to effectively use land and water resources, a special land fund has been created for agricultural needs. Land plots are transferred to producers for a period of 99 years.
He said that Turkmenistan is ready to cooperate with brotherly Afghanistan in the field of agro-industrial complex and agriculture, expand bilateral cooperation in priority areas in this area and enter new forms of partnerships, Kerim Saparov said.
Azat Atamyradov, chairman of the Turkmendemirellary (Turkmen Railways) agency, said that the Turkmen railway company plans to use its own investments to build a loading and unloading area with a covered warehouse complex in the dry port of Turgundi, and work on this project is already underway.
He said that the raft bilateral memorandums on the allocation of land for the construction of a warehouse complex and on its management were sent to the Afghan side through diplomatic channels.
He noted that most recently, from February 11 to 18, Turkmen railway industry specialists, during a working visit to the neighboring country, discussed with their Afghan colleagues the preparation of a draft feasibility study for the construction of the Turgundi-Herat railway with a length of 173 km.
Being part of the Lapis Lazuli Corridor, this road, together with the new cargo terminal in Turgundi, will create additional conditions for the development of the Afghan economy, the activation of small and medium-sized businesses in the country, and the export of Afghan products to the markets of neighboring countries, Turkey and Europe.
There are two border railway crossings between Turkmenistan and Afghanistan: Serhetabat-Turgundi and Imamnazar-Akina. Turkmenistan also built the Kerki-Imamnazar-Akina-Andkhoy railway and implemented a number of other projects to develop Afghanistan’s railway infrastructure.Myrat Artykov, the head of the Department of the Ministry of Energy for International Projects in the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan, said that Turkmenistan is taking consistent steps to increase the volume and diversify routes for the supply of electricity to Afghanistan.
He said that currently, electricity is sent from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan along the Kerki-Andkhoy, Serhetabat-Herat, Serhetabat-Turgundi, Rabatkashan-Kalainau and Zelili-Akina routes. As Artykov noted, since the establishment of cooperation in this area between the two countries, the volumes of Turkmen electricity sent to this country have been growing every year.
In January 2021, the Kerki power plant with a capacity of 500 kW and the Kerki-Andkhoy-Shibergan-Mazar-i-Sharif power transmission line were put into operation. To implement this project, the Ministry of Energy of Turkmenistan built a 500 kW power plant in the city of Kerki, a power transmission line with a length of 388 km from the Mary hydroelectric station to the city of Kerki, as well as a 500 kV power transmission line from Kerki with a length of 62 km to the Turkmen-Afghan border.
According to the purchase and sale agreement between the Turkmenenergo corporation and the Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS) company, 220 kV of electrical power is currently being transmitted in this direction. In the near future, it is planned to extend the route of this line to the capital of Afghanistan, Kabul, and supply electricity with a capacity of 500 kV.
In 2024, Turkmenistan intends to send a total of 1,835,300,000 kWh of electricity to fraternal Afghanistan.
At the same time, in order to fully satisfy the electricity demand of consumers in the Afghan provinces of Herat, Farah and Kandahar, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan power transmission line project was launched.
The project investor is the Turkish company Calik Holding AS. According to the concept presented by the company, this project is planned to be implemented in three stages.
At the first stage – the construction of a power transmission line from the Mary hydroelectric station to the province of Herat with a length of 375 km and a capacity of 220 kV; on the second – power lines from MaryHPP to the city of Quetta in Pakistan with a length of 1150 km and a power of 500 kV; on the third – 220 kV power transmission lines with a length of 575 km from Herat province to Kandahar province in Afghanistan.
As part of the implementation of the first stage of the project, in August 2021, the investor company completed the construction and installation work of the Turkmen part, the new power transmission system was brought into a state of readiness for connection to the energy system of Afghanistan. At the same time, the investor company, free of charge, overhauled the existing 110 kV power transmission line from the Turkmen-Afghan border to the Afghan city of Herat and prepared the power transmission system for operation at a power of 220 kV.
Construction and installation work is currently underway to expand the Nur-ul-Jihad power plant in Herat; during this month, modern technological equipment will be installed there and commissioning work will be carried out.
The commissioning of this important facility will increase the amount of electricity supplied from Turkmenistan to Herat from the current 70 MW to 120 MW.
On the sidelines, a meeting of women entrepreneurs of Turkmenistan and Afghanistan was held, during which positions on the development of cooperation and further strengthening of mutually beneficial business partnerships were agreed upon.
The Afghan group of women was led by Feriba Naseri, who spoke about the work of each member of the delegation she led, and each participant in the forum added a story about herself and her business.
The Turkmen side was represented by women of the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Particular attention was paid to the issue of signing a memorandum between the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Turkmenistan and the Women’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Afghanistan.
Today, the State Commodity and Raw Materials Exchange of Turkmenistan plans to hold on-site trading with the participation of domestic and Afghan businessmen. /// nCa, 5 March 2024 [some parts of this report from TDH and Orient, all pictures credit nCa]
Here are some pictures from the mega event:
