6.6 million seedlings of Pine nuts and 3.5 million Pistachio seedlings have been planted this year
KABUL, Afghanistan: General Directorate of Chief of staff of Presidential, "held a national meeting on Product and Export Development of Afghanistan’s Pine-nuts and Pistachio to the global market" on Thursday with the participation of government officials, heads of chambers of commerce, professionals’ of pistachio and pine-nuts farmers and investors at the government information and media center.
Khan Wali Basharmal, technical deputy of Chief of staff General Directorate said; the meeting will focus on revitalizing pistachio and pine nut forests, creating new forests, collecting and packaging the standard, and exporting these two products to world markets, and the results will be presented to the presidency.
He emphasized the need for partnership between the people and the government, adding that pistachio production in the north and pine nut in the south of the country needs to be developed.
Pine nut forests are existing in 9 provinces of Afghanistan and currently occupies about 44,000 hectares of land.
Mr. Hashmatullah Ghafouri deputy of the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock, said more than 23,000 tons of product have been extracted from Afghanistan's pine nut forests.
Besides pine nut, pistachio is one of the major agricultural products in Afghanistan and is currently grown in the north of the country in 11 provinces including Herat.
Presently, there are 3571 hectares of pistachio forest in these provinces and last year more than 25,000 tons of these forests were harvested.
Ghafouri said the Ministry of Agriculture will create the largest pistachio orchard on an area of 30,000 hectares in Herat soon, with another 10,000 hectares of pistachio forests still to be established in other provinces.
Meanwhile, Honored Mr. Ajmal Hamid Abdul Rahimzai deputy minister for trade affairs of Ministry of Industry and Commerce pointed to the increase in exports, saying that Afghanistan's exports have increased by 57% over the past 4 years. He added that pine nut, pistachio and saffron are the most important export items of Afghanistan and there is currently a demand from 16 countries to buy it.
Abdul Rahimzai said the Ministry of Industry and Commerce is working to increase Afghanistan's export graph and reach a total of about $ 1 billion by the end of the year.
At the meeting, Vice President of the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Investment, Khan Jan Alkozay thanked the President for his attention to the private sector, and the promises made by the President to the sector especially in the field of domestic products.
On behalf of the private sector he assured that efforts are being made to increase production, process and export domestic products.
The deputy governors of Herat, Nangarhar and Khost provinces at the meeting called for the establishment and restoration of pistachio and pine nut forests in the north and south of the country are ready and baptized for the establishment of standard factories for processing packaging for these two valuable products.
Pistachio and pine nuts are widely produced in Afghanistan. Due to the special attention of the President, the smuggling of neighboring countries has recently been prevented, and this product is currently being exported to the world markets through the air corridors and ports under the name of Afghanistan.
