{"id":7728,"date":"2020-03-12T15:50:03","date_gmt":"2020-03-12T12:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/?p=7728"},"modified":"2020-03-12T15:50:05","modified_gmt":"2020-03-12T12:50:05","slug":"trade-between-iran-and-afghanistan-remains-steady-despite-us-sanctions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/monitoring-and-translation\/reports\/trade-between-iran-and-afghanistan-remains-steady-despite-us-sanctions\/","title":{"rendered":"Trade between Iran and Afghanistan Remains Steady, Despite US Sanctions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In February 2019, Afghanistan sent its first export\ncontainers to India<\/a> through Iran\u2019s port of\nChabahar. The port is a strategic South-North corridor that will expand trade\nbetween these three countries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran is Afghanistan\u2019s top trade partner. Most of the trade\nflows from Iran to its eastern neighbor, given Afghanistan\u2019s small export capacity<\/a> of only $1.5 billion –\n$1.8 billion annually. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2017-2018, the total volume of trade<\/a> between the two countries\nstood at $2 billion. This figure constituted nearly a third of Afghanistan\u2019s\ntotal $7 billion annual trade volume. Iran\u2019s exports held a 22 percent share of\nAfghanistan\u2019s $11.5 billion consumer market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the reimposition of US sanctions against Iran in May\n2018, Tehran remained a top exporte<\/a>r of goods to Afghanistan, according to\nthe Afghan Statistics Administration. According to Afghan experts, the real import<\/a> figures from Iran were much\nhigher, given the lack of border controls and frequent trafficking of goods. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In August 2019, Iran and Afghanistan signed a Memorandum of\nUnderstanding (MoU) to provide electricity<\/a> exchange options\nbetween the two neighboring countries. Exports from the Dogharoon Customs in\nnortheastern Iran<\/a> to Afghanistan indicated a 20\npercent rise during the middle of 2019 compared to the same period in\n2018.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019, Afghanistan imported oil<\/a> from Iran, despite US sanctions\non Tehran. Afghanistan could turn to Central Asia for its oil imports but there\nwould be a steep cost. In addition to oil, Kabul imports products such as\nkerosene, mazut, and dissolvents from Iran. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran\u2019s cement<\/a> exports to Afghanistan also\nincreased under sanctions, because of the higher quality of Iranian cement.\nMoreover, some 30 percent of Iran\u2019s exports to Afghanistan flowed from the\nIranian Southern Khorasan Province, which also serves as a coal and minerals<\/a> hub for potential exports\nto Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2020, Afghanistan\u2019s authorities confirmed that Iran had\nexported $1,264,000,000 worth of goods<\/a> to its neighbor, including oil products,\nwheat, machinery, edible oils, fabrics, metal products, and electricity. These\nfigures meant that Iranian exports were almost equal to Afghanistan\u2019s own net\nexports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nSurprisingly, Iran\u2019s exports to Afghanistan were even more than China or\nPakistan, or any Central Asian country. Iranian exports were double<\/a> the size of exports from\nthese other countries whose exports to Afghanistan stood between the range of\n$400 million – $500 million annually. The increase in global customs and tariff\nrates, as well as global price changes, forced a decrease in Afghanistan\u2019s\ntrade by approximately 1.3 percent with most of its other neighbors, especially\nPakistan. Conflicts, and the occasional closing off of the Afghan-Pakistan\nborder, has also contributed to trade dampening between the two countries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The aforesaid data indicates that US sanctions have not\nimpeded trade between Iran and Afghanistan. As immediate neighbors, trade\nbetween the two countries makes sense. Iran can also evade sanctions easily\nwhen trading with Afghanistan. It has been home to millions of Afghan refugees<\/a> since the 1980s, a\ncross-border dwelling community that carries enormous trade potential. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To reaffirm the importance of this trade, Iran and\nAfghanistan held their eighth joint trade exhibition<\/a> in Kabul on February 21,\n2020. The expo arrived on the heels of an announcement by the United States\nearly in the year that it would exempt the development of Chabahar port from\nits sanctions<\/a> regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chabahar is vital to Afghanistan\u2019s economy, as it offers the\ncountry access to warm waters and to the fastest and cheapest export route to\nthe world. In comparison, the Lajevard export border crossing that connects\nAfghanistan via Central Asia to the Black Sea costs Afghan businessmen $2,200\nto get a truckload of goods across. Many of Afghanistan\u2019s adjacent neighbors\nhave even delayed these exports, by refusing to facilitate visas<\/a> for Afghan businessmen<\/a>. Although Afghanistan\nstill exports some goods through Pakistan\u2019s port of Karachi<\/a>, a truckload of goods through this route\ncosts $5,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

India and Afghanistan recently set up\ncargo flights connecting the South-North corridor by air, which increases\nChabahar\u2019s strategic importance. To reaffirm the significance of these trade\nroutes, Afghanistan has developed a National Export Strategy<\/a> and held the Afghanistan Heart of Asia<\/a> gathering in which both Iran\nand India participated, These steps suggest that trade with its key neighbors\nlike Iran will likely persist because it is cost-effective and strategically important\nto Kabul. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In February 2019, Afghanistan sent its first export containers to India through Iran\u2019s port of Chabahar. The port is a strategic South-North corridor that will expand trade between these three countries. Iran is Afghanistan\u2019s top trade partner. Most of the trade flows from Iran to its eastern neighbor, given Afghanistan\u2019s small export capacity of only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":7730,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[164,12,4508,2172,2723],"class_list":["post-7728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reports","tag-afghanistan","tag-iran","tag-trade-between-iran-and-afghanistan","tag-trade-relations","tag-us-sanctions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7728"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7729,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7728\/revisions\/7729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}