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Parliament approves fiscal year’s budget, Ghani praises the move

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The Afghan parliament on Monday approved the current fiscal year's budget with the majority of votes after weeks of tensions between the two-state branches over the document.

Following the national fiscal year budget approval the Presidential Palace issued a statement saying that President Ghani thanked members of the House of Representatives for approving the budget for the 1400 solar fiscal year.

“The President praised the decision, approving the national budget for the solar year 1400 in the national interest, and called it important for the timely implementation of the basic plans and programs of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, especially development projects throughout the country,” read the statement.

"Increasing the salaries of employees, accommodating development projects, the relative balance of money in special codes, reducing unnecessary spending, preventing the loss of people's money are important chapters of this success,” said Mir Rahman Rahmani, speaker of the house.

The fiscal year began on December 21, 2020, and the parliament rejected the budget draft twice.

On Sunday, lawmakers and the Finance Ministry officials agreed on almost all 19 disputed points, but they still have yet to agree on the allocation of the budget for the High Council for National Reconciliation as well as over the reduction in the number of development projects, MPs said.

Both sides also disagreed on a 15 million AFN allocation for the Afghanistan Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority, but the issue was solved when the fund was removed from the third budget draft, according to lawmakers.

In the third and latest draft, 105 million AFN ($1.3 million) have been shifted to the regular budget from the development budget.

Meanwhile, MPs did not approve the budget for a number of departments that did not receive a vote by the parliament, such as the High Council for National Reconciliation, and placed the budget of the Council under the budget of the Presidential administration office.

Some MPs still believe that no changes have been brought in the budget and that "everything (recent disputes) was just a show and was for personal interests."

The estimated budget for the fiscal year 1400 is over 473 billion AFN (nearly $6 billion), including 311 billion AFN ($4 billion) for the regular budget and 162 billion AFN ($2 billion) for the development budget.

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Iran’s non-oil exports to Afghanistan rise by 31% this solar year

Iran’s imports from Afghanistan also rose sharply, totalling over $33 million, a 192% increase in this period

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Iran's non-oil exports to Afghanistan surged by 31% in the first half of this solar year (April to September 2024), totalling over $1.77 billion.

According to Iran’s trade association in Afghanistan, both the value and volume of non-oil exports to Afghanistan saw substantial growth. 

Statistics provided by the association indicate that nearly 560,000 tons of Iranian goods, including iron, steel, cement, eggs, and potatoes, were exported to Afghanistan during this period.

Iran’s imports from Afghanistan also rose sharply, totalling over $33 million, a 192% increase in this period. 

The primary exports to Iran included barley, corn, peanuts, and chilies.

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Private sectors of Afghanistan, Kazakhstan sign contracts worth $100 million

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Private sectors of Afghanistan and Kazakhstan have signed contracts worth $100 million during the visit of an Afghan delegation to Almaty recently, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) announced on Thursday.

The agreements include the export of more than 2,000 tons of dried fruit, the export of fresh fruit, including pomegranates, and the export of cotton, Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Islamic Emirate, said on X.

Mujahid said that the Islamic Emirate delegation during its recent visit to Kazakhstan signed a "road map of cooperation between Afghanistan and Kazakhstan in the fields of trade, industry, mining, energy, logistics, agriculture, telecommunications, health, higher education and humanitarian aid.”

He said Kazakhstan also assured that it would provide more facilities for the transit of Afghan goods to China and other countries through Kazakhstan.

The allocation of an area "as a logistics center for Afghan goods" in the port of Khargos was also part of the agreement between the two sides to facilitate the unloading and loading of Afghan traders' goods.

The spokesman of the Islamic Emirate also said that Kazakhstan will participate in the construction of the Torghundi-Herat, Kandahar-Spin Boldak and Mazar-e-Sharif-Kharlachi railway projects.

Mujahid added that Kazakhstan will also participate in the establishment of a trade and transit center in Herat province, which will be used to store and finance trade and transit goods. Meanwhile, Kazakhstan has agreed to establish permanent expo centers for the sale of Afghan goods in various cities of Kazakhstan.

It is worth mentioning that the delegation of the Islamic Emirate led by Nooruddin Azizi, Acting Minister of Industry and Commerce, participated in the three-day exhibition of Afghanistan's domestic products, which was launched on October 21 in Almaty.

The Ministry of Industry and Commerce recently announced that 23 tons of pomegranates from Kandahar province were exported to Almaty through the port of Torghundi.

 

 

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China resumes direct rail trade with Afghanistan

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China resumed its direct freight rail services to Afghanistan on Thursday when a train loaded with goods left Nantong city in Jiangsu province.

The train, carrying commercial goods in 55 wagons, is heading for the northern Hairatan border in Balkh province, Yue Xiaoyong, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Special Representative for Afghanistan, said in a post on X.

Nantong is a central hub of the Belt and Road Initiative and is located north of Shanghai.

The resumption of the rail line was marked at a formal ceremony on Thursday with Yue and Bilal Karimi, the Afghan Ambassador to China, in attendance.

This comes after China recently announced plans to lift customs tariffs on Afghan exports to China by the end of this year, further strengthening trade ties between the two nations.

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