Afghan Voice Agency (AVA) - Kabul: A 2,000-ton cargo of 33 continuous wagons carrying sleepers and cement arrived in Afghanistan today, Wednesday, January 15.
According to IRAF, in early January, the Director General of the Eastern Railway of the Islamic Republic of Iran announced that for the first time, cement was transported from Bojnourd Station to Roznak Station in Afghanistan on the Khaf-Herat route with a dedicated covered wagon.
The Director General of the Eastern Railway of Iran also noted: If cement cargo is provided in a systematic and continuous manner on this rail route, the Islamic Republic of Iran Railway Company has the possibility to consider two train sets per week for this route.
The Khaf-Herat railway is a standard route that connects the city of Khaf in Iran to the city of Herat and plays an important role in the transport and export of goods to Central Asia and European countries.
This 230-kilometer-long railway consists of four sections, two of which are located in Iran and the other two in Afghanistan, and this route is also known as the Silk Railway of Afghanistan.
It is also worth mentioning that at the beginning of 1403 AH, a contract for the construction of the second part of the fourth section of this project, with a length of 47.3 kilometers, was signed with the Gamma International Construction Company worth about 53 million US dollars.
Last week, 4 trains carrying 3,300 tons of sleepers entered the country from Iran. This shipment comes at a time when the China-Afghanistan trade rail route was activated for the first time via Iran. The first train carrying Chinese cargo, which included 1,000 tons of iron sheets, arrived at Roznak station in Herat from China via the Bandar Abbas-Khaf-Herat rail network.
Since the start of operation of the Khaf-Herat rail corridor this year, with the management of the Afghan Rail Consortium and the support of the Ministry of Roads and the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways Company, more than 30,000 tons of export and transit cargo have been transported by rail between Iran and Afghanistan and vice versa.