More than 4,000 trucks passed through Mahiroud border crossing located along the Iran-Afghanistan border during the first seven months of the current fiscal year (March 20-Oct. 22), says a local official.
"The number is 19 times higher than the corresponding period of last year. These trucks transited 129,389 tons of goods to Afghanistan, 23 times more than the volume of transited goods during the first seven months of the previous fiscal year," IRNA quoted Moshirolhaq Abedi, an official with South Khorasan Governorate, as saying.
According to the official, the goods were mostly transited from Indonesia, China, Turkmenistan, India, the UAE, Russia and Turkey to the neighboring country.
Mahiroud Special Economic Zone’s Customs office, launched in 2017, is equipped with the latest electronic systems supplied by the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration, including the customs’ comprehensive integrated system.
It has administrative offices, storage facilities, server and monitoring rooms, a department for sniffer dogs, passenger X-ray, a satellite connection system and an emergency electricity generator.
Mahiroud is a village in Doreh Rural District of Sarbisheh County, South Khorasan Province, situated along the border with Afghanistan’s Farah Province.
Iran-Afghanistan Rail Connectivity
The 130-kilometer-long Khaf-Herat railroad, connecting Iran and Afghanistan, has high potentials for increasing transit to the eastern neighboring country, according to the head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways.
Khaf is a county in Khorasan Razavi Province to the north of South Khorasan province.
“The annual transit to Afghanistan from the Commonwealth of Independent States and Turkey amounting to 1.2 million tons and 500,000 tons respectively can be redirected to Khaf-Herat railroad,” Saeed Rasouli was quoted as saying by the news portal of the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development.
The official noted that the Iranian government expects the railroad to further increase social, economic and cultural ties between the two nations.
“We are counting on Khaf-Herat rail route to play a significant role in boosting interactions between Iran and Afghanistan.”
According to Roads Minister Mohammad Eslami, the project is near completion and awaits inauguration in a couple of weeks.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani and his Afghan Counterpart Ashraf Ghani are expected to attend the inauguration ceremony.
Khaf-Herat railroad will be 130 km long, of which 70 km are inside Iran and 60 km are in Afghanistan. With the completion of this project, Afghanistan can, for the first time, take advantage of a railroad that provides access to Turkey and Europe through Iranian ports in the Persian Gulf.
The project, started in April 2007 with Iran’s assistance worth $75 million, was due to finish in 2009 but was delayed.
The Khaf-Herat railroad is the largest joint infrastructural project between Iran and Afghanistan.
Referring to the economic significance of the project, officials of Herat Chamber of Commerce and Industries have said the implementation of the project will further expand exports and imports between Iran and Afghanistan.
Iranian officials believe the project will also help Afghanistan get easy access to Iranian ports at Chabahar and Bandar Abbas.
