India may host meet to lure investors for Chabahar port

A major economic summit will likely be held in India within the next two months to attract investment from across the globe for the strategic Chabahar port in Iran which would give India access to Afghanistan bypassing Pakistan, said the Afghan Ambassador to New Delhi. 

Referring to the meeting between Shipping, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari, Iranian Minister of Roads and Urban Development Abbas Akhoundi and Afghanistan’s Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation Mohamadullah Batash on Wednesday, Afghan Ambassador to India Shaida Abdali said its purpose was to expedite the implementation of the Chabahar transit and trade agreement and there were some “very good decisions” taken within that framework.

“We are going to address some of the technical issues involved in the Chabahar agreement and within the next two months we will -- in India or Iran, but more likely India -- call a major economic summit where all the industries will participate from India, Afghanistan, Iran and from beyond,” the Abdali told reporters here at The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of South Asia.

Abdali said the ministers met in order to deal with the technical issues that are still left to be addressed and the decision was made that India, Afghanistan and Iran will have a secretariat each to deal with those.

“Within a month, the three secretariats will meet again and we will have a technical team sitting again before the major summit that we have. All issues pending will be resolved. Procedures for others to invest will be made clear.

We will be fully ready for foreign investers...to start business,” he said.

While talking about the ambitious project, said, “Our purpose is not to concentrate on the three countries’ business and economic relations but to involve and engage all other neighbours, especially the neighbours in Central Asia and South Asia.” 

“We would like to give this a much more expansion beyond these countries. We need more investments for the Chabahar port and we need international investments. 

We hope that the major summit that will be called  in Delhi will have participation from many countries in the region and around the world to attract more investment to the Chabahar port,” Abdali said.