KABUL - Officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) said on Wednesday that currently Afghanistan’s strategic warehouse capacity for cereal is estimated to be 270,000 tons and that government warmly welcomes investors willing to invest in the establishment of cereal warehouses - especially for wheat.
Kazakh media reported that Kazakhstan wants to invest in the establishment of wheat warehouses in the country.
Afghanistan currently imports thousands of tons of wheat from Kazakhstan annually.
However officials in Kazakhstan have not lodged an official request regarding investment in the cereal warehouse sector, but Afghan officials said that with the establishment of such storage facilities, Afghanistan will be able to cut down on import costs, especially that of wheat coming in from central Asian countries including Kazakhstan.
“We need strategic reserve facilities to be built in the country, but to make it happen it must come from which address and source? This issue so far has not been discussed between the ministry of agriculture and with the Kazakh side,” said Lotfullah Rashid, a spokesman for MAIL.
Economic commentators have said that if warehouses are established along the borders, the Afghan government will be able to decrease its expenditure on the importation of wheat and that it will also help with Afghanistan’s food safety programs.
“From one perspective, the establishment of strategic reserve facilities for wheat by the friendly country of Kazakhstan will be helpful in the future if God helps us to increase our wheat production in the long term,” said economic analyst Shabir Bashiri.
Afghanistan needs six million tons of wheat annually and of this, 4.5 million tons comes from domestic sources and another 1.5 million from abroad. (Tolonews)