Tehran, Dec 31 : According to the deputy head of Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organization (PMO) for ports and economic affairs, the trilateral agreement between Iran, India and Afghanistan on transit of goods via Iran’s southeastern port of Chabahar will be officially implemented on February 26, 2019.
The official portal of the Transport Ministry quoted Mohammad-Ali Hassanzadeh as saying in an interview in a state-TV program, the agreement’s implementation requires attraction of businessmen and launching direct shipping lines between Chabahar and India’s port, as well as other ports at the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman, Tehran times reported.
“The implementation has been started since a week ago and of course, some cargos had been transited from India to Afghanistan before that,” he said, “About 10 ships of wheat and beans, weighting 120,000 tons, have been transported from India to Afghanistan, previously.”
On October 23, Iran, India and Afghanistan inked an agreement on transit of goods via Chabahar.
The agreement was signed in Tehran by Mohammad Rastad, the head of PMO, T.S. Tirumurti, the secretary of economic relations in India’s Ministry of External Affairs, and Imammohammad Warymoch, Afghanistan’s deputy minister of transport, during the first meeting of coordination council of agreement on the establishment of an international transport and transit corridor among Iran, India and Afghanistan (Chabahar Agreement).
These three countries signed a trilateral transit agreement in Tehran in May 2016, which allows them open new routes to connect among themselves via converting Chabahar Port into a transit hub bypassing Pakistan.
According to statistics, India trades nearly 15 million tons of commodities with Russia and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) — a part of which is expected to be transited via the port of Chabahar, the official said.
With the completion of the first phase of Chabahar port development plan, the capacity of this port grew from 2.5 million tons to 8.5 million tons a year so that it will play a significant role in transit of commodities from India to Afghanistan.
Accordingly, through Chabahar Port India can bypass Pakistan and transport goods to Afghanistan and Central Asia, while Afghanistan can get linked to India via sea.
The document was signed in the presence of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
