June 4, 2003	Wednesday	Rabi-us-Sani 3, 1424

KABUL, June 3: Afghanistan needs double-digit economic growth over the next five years to haul itself from poverty, Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai said on Tuesday.

He also called on international donors to pledge more aid to help rebuild a country shattered by 23 years of war and occupation.

“My estimation is that we need 12 to 14 per cent rate of growth for five years to get out of poverty and the current deprivation,” Ahmadzai told a news briefing in the capital.

He said that to achieve the growth target, the international community needed to give around $15 billion in aid over the next five years, dwarfing the $4.5 billion promised over five years at a donor conference last year.

Afghanistan’s private sector should generate another $15 billion in investment over the same period, Ahmadzai added. A key investment area would be mining, especially oil and gas, he said.

Afghanistan also hopes that a multi-billion-dollar natural gas pipeline linking huge gas fields in Central Asia’s Turkmenistan to markets in Pakistan and possibly India will generate hundreds of millions of dollars in transport revenues.

The project has been stalled over security fears and tensions, which now appear to be easing, between India and Pakistan.

Ahmadzai repeated earlier criticisms of the international community for not doing enough to support Afghanistan.

“The international community in general has provided us the lowest amount of per capita assistance in any post-conflict country,” he said. “Afghanistan’s problem is an international problem and we need to work together in a spirit of partnership.”

The lack of cash to pay wages and encourage farmers to plant alternative crops is one reason for ballooning opium production since the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001.

While underlining President Hamid Karzai’s message that his people do not want to be dependent on foreign aid, officials are concerned that the huge task of rebuilding Iraq after the war there could divert funds from Afghanistan.

Securing enough water resources in a country badly hit by drought in recent years would cost $667 million alone, he said.

He announced a major overhaul of the revenue system in Afghanistan designed to wrest cash from powerful local governors and warlords to fill state coffers.

Ahmadzai has just returned from the western province of Herat where he secured the transfer of $20 million to the state, replaced senior customs officials and established a system for future payments.—Reuters