KHOST CITY (SW) – A number of traders in Khost province say that for exporting pine nuts, they direly need access to an air corridor and other necessary facilities.
According to them, currently only Chinese traders can export pine nuts to China and other countries.
Raees Khan, a pine nut trader, says that the groundwork for exporting pine nuts via an air corridor should be provided. He adds: “We ask the government to facilitate the export of pine nuts; this year, traders from China came and bought this product at a low price, reducing our profits. If we export pine nuts to China directly, our profits will multiply.”
Sadeq Khan, another trader in Khost, mentioned that if standard factories for processing and packaging pine nuts are established, Afghanistan’s revenue from this could double. “The problem is that the transportation costs to Kabul and China are very high; we ask the government to reduce the costs of transporting pine nuts to China. If they are exported to China at a good price, they will also be sold at a good price in Kabul,” he explained.
Dawood, another pine nut trader, said: “Cold storage facilities need to be built; currently, we use tents to store pine nuts. There should be cold storage places, for example, in Gardez, so that people from every province can come to buy.”
Another major issue for pine nut traders is that transactions are conducted in Pakistani Kaldar currency.
Hakim, one of the pine nut traders in Khost, stated that this situation causes traders millions of afghanis in losses each year. “We want the sale of pine nuts to be in afghanis so we do not incur losses.”
Meanwhile, Mostaghfer Gorbaz, the spokesperson for the Khost governor, promises that the issues faced by pine nut traders will be addressed. “The door of the provincial offices is open to everyone, especially for pine nut traders. They can share their proposals with us, and we will present them to the officials in Kabul to solve the traders’ problems.”
According to statistics provided by the Pine Nut Sellers Union in Khost, it is estimated that this solar year, the export volume of pine nuts from Khost, Paktia, and Paktika may reach 3,500 tons.
