India, Af plan air transport corridor

India and Afghanistan are planning to set up an air transport corridor to avert bottlenecks created by Pakistan in land connectivity between Central and South Asia. Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the plan to set up the air transport corridor between the two countries after he had a bilateral meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on the sideline of the Heart of Asia ministerial conference.

The air transport corridor is intended to improve landlocked Afghanistan’s trade connectivity with India and other countries in South and Southeast Asia. It will also help India access the markets of Central Asia and Europe through Afghanistan, bypassing Pakistan.

“Afghanistan should be at the centre of our connectivity networks, not peripheral to them. On our part, we see Afghanistan as the hub for strengthening links of connectivity between South Asia and Central Asia,” Modi said, inaugurating the sixth ministerial conference of Heart of Asia – a 14-nation initiative to help stabilise war-ravaged Afghanistan.

“We cannot deny that the more connected Afghanistan is with the regional arteries of trade, capital and markets, the more assured would be its economic growth and progress,” he said.