Afghanistan offers 5-year tax break for Indian investors

Interacting with journalists at the Afghan embassy in Delhi on Monday, Azizi said a commercial attache from Afghanistan is expected to arrive in India in a month’s time and Kabul wants to boost bilateral trade to “much more” than $1 billion.

Azizi said there is a “strong will” from both sides when it comes to private investment.

Azizi invited Indian businesses to invest in Afghanistan and identified mining, agriculture, health and pharmaceuticals, information technology, energy and textiles as areas where significant opportunities exist.

In a bid to woo investments, he said that Afghanistan is ready to offer five-year tax breaks to firms investing in new sectors, including gold mining.

“There is a huge potential in Afghanistan. You will not find a lot of competitors. You will also receive tariff support, and we will be able to give you land. The five-year tax exemption will be given to companies which may be interested to invest in new sectors,” Azizi said.

Afghanistan will charge only 1 per cent tariff if Indian firms import machinery for investment, he said.

“Gold mining will definitely require the technical and professional team or professional companies. So initially, we are requesting that you send your team, they can do the research, they can do the exploration initially, and then they can start work. However, the condition is that we will expect it to be processed in the country so jobs can be created,” the minister said.

The visiting Taliban minister urged the Indian side to remove “minor” hurdles to boost bilateral trade.

“We want to build the relationship between India and Afghanistan. There are some minor hurdles which really affect the overall process, like visa, air corridor, banking transactions. So, these have to be sorted out to improve bilateral trade and investment,” he said in the presence of Indian government officials.

Indian officials said that air cargo services between India and Afghanistan will commence very soon. “I am pleased to announce that the air freight corridor on the Kabul-Delhi sector and Kabul-Amritsar routes have been activated and cargo flights on these sectors will commence very soon,” Anand Prakash, Joint Secretary in the MEA, said at an interaction with business community where Azizi was also present.

He said the joint working group on trade, commerce and investment will be reactivated to boost bilateral trade between India and Afghanistan.

“Bilateral trade stands at around $1 billion. However, there remains significant scope for further growth. In this context, we have decided to reactivate the joint working group on trade, commerce and investment,” Prakash said.