The two-day meeting of the India-Central Asia Joint Working Group that began on Wednesday in Mumbai was its first on the Chabahar Port development. This meeting is a significant development in strengthening the connectivity between India, Central Asia, and Iran.
The Chabahar Port is strategically positioned as a commercial transit hub for the region. India, Iran, and Afghanistan signed a trilateral agreement in 2016 to establish the International Transport and Transit Corridor (Chabahar Agreement) with India granting USD 85 million in assistance and a credit facility of USD 150 million for the development of the Shahid Beheshti Terminal. India has also provided equipment worth USD 25 million to aid in the development of the port, including six mobile harbour cranes.
The seaport located in southeastern Iran, on the Gulf of Oman, serves as the country’s only oceanic port, and consists of two separate ports, Shahid Kalantari and Shahid Beheshti, each of which has five berths. It is strategically important for India as it is only 170 kilometres from Pakistan’s Port Gwadar.
Interestingly, the consul general of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan also participated and emphasised the significance of Chabahar Port for the delivery of humanitarian assistance for the Afghan people and providing economic opportunities for Afghan businessmen and traders.
It has been recently operationalised after supply chain disruptions following the Ukraine war. The port has also helped India provide humanitarian assistance to the region, especially during the Covid pandemic.
India activated Chabahar to send aid to Afghanistan under the Taliban regime. This decision was announced in the first meeting that took place in Delhi in partnership with the UN World Food Programme while India has sent about 40,000 metric tonnes of the 50,000 metric tonnes promised the year before, after an agreement with previous PM Imran Khan’s government. The shipment had to be called off after floods in Pakistan and the time period allowed by Pakistan ran out. India has also used the Chabahar route in the past, prior to 2021 to send shipments of wheat to Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Iran’s deputy foreign minister Mehdi Safari sought greater engagement of Central Asian nations in the Chabahar project. The envoy of the Kyrgyz Republic said that the Chabahar Port would reduce the time from 35 days to just two weeks.
1. The first meeting of the India-Central Asia Joint Working Group (JWG) on Chabahar Port was held in Mumbai on April 12-13, 2023. The meeting was chaired by the secretary (ER) and attended by the deputy ministers and senior officials of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Republic of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and the Republic of Uzbekistan. The special invitees for the event were the country representative of the UN World Food Program (UNWFP), the deputy foreign minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the consul general of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.
2. During the meeting, the managing director of India Ports Global Limited (IPGL) gave a comprehensive presentation on the facilities and the current operations at the Shahid Beheshti Terminal, Chabahar Port. The country representative for UNWFP made a presentation on the ongoing cooperation between India and UNWFP in Afghanistan for the delivery of wheat assistance. The consul general of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan emphasised the significance of Chabahar Port for the delivery of humanitarian assistance for the Afghan people and for providing economic opportunities for Afghan businessmen and traders.
3. The deputy foreign minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran proposed to hold the next round of the India-Central Asia Joint Working Group (JWG) in Iran along with the participation of the private sector. The participants welcomed the proposal.
4. The participants agreed on the following:
(a) Appreciated the role played by Shahid Behesti Terminal, Chabahar Port in facilitating the shipments of humanitarian assistance for the Afghan people. Since IPGL took over operations in December 2018, India has utilised the port to ship a total of 2.5 million tonnes of wheat and two thousand tonnes of pulses to Afghanistan.
(b) Noted that the further development of regional connectivity is essential for enhancing trade and commerce between India and Central Asian countries in the context of their land-locked nature and lack of overland connectivity with India.
(c) Reaffirmed that the connectivity initiatives should conform with international norms, rule of law, and respect for international commitments, and are based on mutually agreed principles of sustainable connectivity, transparency, broad participation, local priorities, financial sustainability, and respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries.
(d) Emphasised that the connectivity projects deserve priority attention and could be a force multiplier for trade and economic cooperation and contacts between countries and people.
(e) Agreed that connectivity requires the active participation of the private sector. In order to facilitate large-scale private investments in sustainable connectivity, the sides expressed their commitment to implement relevant international standards, to ensure a level playing field for companies and to ensure reciprocal access to markets.
(f) Upon their request, the Indian side offered capacity-building programmes to the officials/relevant stakeholders of participating countries in the field of port management and logistics.
5. The participants thanked the Republic of India for holding the first Joint Working Group Meeting on the joint use of Chabahar Port in Mumbai and agreed to hold the next round of meetings at a mutually convenient date.
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