Gov’t to build fruit packaging facility, laboratory in Kabul

The Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock is all set to build a compound of fruit packaging facility and a laboratory in Badam Bagh area in Kabul.
Work on the compound will be completed within the next seven months, the agriculture minister Nasir Ahmad Durani said.
The laboratory equipment will be imported from the US and Europe, he said.
“We hope that by the next seven months, this complex will be inaugurated. By activation of the complex, we will issue fruit quality certificates in line with the international standards for the fruit being exported. Currently the US and Europe markets demand such certificates,” Durani said.
Officials from the European Union meanwhile said Afghan products should be packaged in line with the international packaging standards and also hold accredited quality certificates in order to find their way to Europe markets.
EU officials said the Afghan government should use the tariff privileges granted by the European countries to Kabul for expansion of its trade.
“We are working also very closely with the ministry in terms of setting up laboratories and setting up certification systems, because, of course as you know the European markets are very demanding, very exigent and some minimal requirements have to be met,” Gonzalo Serrano-de-la-rosa, deputy head of EU ambassador to Kabul said.
Afghanistan has many types of goods for export that markets in the regional and international countries need them, but due to lack of standard packaging and quality certificates they cannot be sent directly to those markets.