Fig fruit weighing 6,000 tons worth $34 million has so far been exported to India, Pakistan and other countries from southern Kandahar province over the past eight months.
About 30,000 tons of figs – the third in value and production after pomegranates and grapes in Kandahar — are annually exported from the province abroad.
Thousands of people are associated with the business of fresh and dried figs. Small traders buy figs in districts and bring them to Kandahar City, the provincial capital, where big businessmen export the fruit in dried condition abroad.
Abdul Khaliq, who brings figs from Shah Walikot district to Kandahar City, the provincial capital, told Pajhwok Afghan News that the fruit was mostly produced in Shah Walikot, Mianeshin and Neka districts.
Besides Kandahar, figs are widely produced in Tirinkot, the capital of central Uruzgan province, and in Mizan and Shahr-i-Safa districts of southern Zabul province.
Khaliq said figs produced in the mentioned areas were also brought to Kandahar for sale and export. He said fig was a fresh and soft fruit but it could not be exported abroad when it’s fresh.
He was happy with his fig business this year, saying it had improved compared to the past years.
Eng. Abdul Baqi Bena, deputy head of the Kandahar Chamber of Commerce and Industries told Pajhwok, about 30,000 tons of figs worth millions of dollars were annually exported abroad from Kandahar.
He said during the past six months 6,000 tons of the dried fruit had been exported to India, Pakistan and other countries.
Bena said the dried fruit could not be exported in huge quantity because traders feared losses as they had previously incurred in dried apricot.
Thousands of tons of pomegranates, grapes and other fruits are exported from Kandahar to foreign countries amid problems in transit trade and lack of alternate routes to reach international markets, he concluded.
