BERLIN, March 31: Donor nations have pledged 8.2 billion dollars in aid for Afghanistan over the next three years, Afghan Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani announced on Wednesday at an international conference in Berlin.

Ghani said $4.4 billion had been promised for this year alone. "This is 100 per cent of our target," he told a press conference at the close of the first day of the conference.

He said that for US budgetary reasons, the figure of $8.2 billion - which falls short of the Kabul government's three-year goal of $11.9bn - did not count the expected US contributions for the final year.

The figures are set against Afghanistan's stated aim of securing a total of $27.5bn over the next seven years. It says the money is essential to help rebuild the war-ravaged nation.

Mr Ghani said he was "delighted" that the donor community had "very generously" committed money to his country. The pledges raised so far are broadly in line with what officials had been predicting earlier.

They also eclipse the figure of $4.5bn over a period of three to five years raised by the January 2002 donors' conference in Tokyo. The Berlin conference is aimed at assessing the progress of reconstruction so far in Afghanistan and determining what needs to be done to help secure the country's future.

As well as raising aid pledges, it is also focusing on improving security, tackling drugs and shoring up the government of President Hamid Karzai. -AFP