Hamid Ansari to visit Tajikistan to boost trade, ties

NEW DELHI: Vice President Hamid Ansari will discuss ways to further the country's trade and defence ties and other bilateral issues with Tajikistan during his three- day "goodwill" visit to the central Asian nation beginning tomorrow.


This is the first ever visit by an Indian Vice President to Tajikistan, a hydrocarbon and minerals-rich nation.

During his visit, Ansari will hold high-level talks with Tajikistan's President Emomali Rahmon and its Prime Minister, Defence Minister and Minister of Economic Development and Trade, among others, to give fresh impetus to bilateral relations.

"Tajikistan has immense geo-strategic significance. It has a border with China of 520 km. It has a border with Afghanistan of 1,420 km. This is a very porous border and adds to the geo-strategic significance of the region.

"The Afghan-Wakhan corridor is 16 km, which is the least distance between Tajikistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK)," Ajay Bisaria, Joint Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs, said.

Both the countries share "close and cordial" relations since two decades of Tajikistan's independence, he said.

During the visit, there will be discussions on opening trans-Afghan corridor to facilitate easy movement of goods from inside and outside the land-locked country, which is surrounded by mountains.

He said the existing route to trade is via Iran, which is both "time-consuming and costly".

"Level of trade was low mainly due to difficulty in transportation. We are also in talks for trans-Afghan corridor which will give us special access to Tajikistan. In terms of trade for 2012, trade figures from Tajikistan say it was $ 27 million, which is extremely low," Bisaria said.

On expected deliverables of the visit, he said, "Visits of Vice Presidents are normally goodwill visits and we see them as high level continuation of political dialogues with very close strategic partners in central Asia. Normally, during these visits, we do not have deliverables like agreements".