HERAT CITY/KABUL (PAN): The Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Industries (ACCI) on Thursday alleged neighbouring countries, seeking to sell their substandard products to the landlocked nation, had succeeded in undermining some Afghan factories.
The allegation comes the day a steel-melting factory in Herat province, which borders Iran, was shut down. Other industrial units are feared to meet the same fate.
ACCI Deputy Chairman Khan Jan Alokozai told Pajhwok Afghan News in Kabul that industries in Herat were in bad shape. He said neighbouring countries wanted the local factories to collapse and to continue selling their low-quality products to the Afghans.
He said the main problem facing local industries was obtaining visas for foreign skilled workers in Afghanistan. The process was time-consuming and pretty complicated, he observed.
Foreign workers are issued visas for three months while they work in Afghan factories for years. Alokozai said they had raised the issue with the Cabinet and called for early action in this regard.
Meanwhile, ACCI Herat chapter members and industrialists threatened to close down the industrial park if foreign workers were not issued visas.
An ACCI spokesman for Herat, Toryalai Ghausi, who is also the Industrialist Union deputy president, said most factories in the province were on the verge of collapse.
He said they sent foreign workers to Kabul to obtain visas, but the process took five days and cost $1000 per visa. If a foreign worker remained absent for an hour, it had a negative effect on a factory’s production.
He asked the government to open a visa office for foreign workers in Herat and provide other essential facilities to industries. Thousands of workers had left jobs in local factories due to lack of facilities on the part of the government.
He said previously 40,000 workers would work in Herat factories, but the number had fallen to 10,000. Nearly 500 foreign workers are hired and most of them are Iranians and Pakistanis.
Mohiuddin Noori, the governor’s spokesman, said there were a total of 350 factories at the industrial park but only 100 were functional. He valued Investment in the park over the past one year at $100 million.
The owner of a steel-melting factory on Thursday closed down the facility in protest against an inordinate delay in issuance of visas to foreign workers.
Asmatullah Wardak said his factory would remain closed until its foreign workers were issued visas. He has invested $22 million in the factory, making it the largest one in Herat.
ma/mud