Khalili calls for sustained economic growth

KABUL): Second Vice-President Karim Khalili on Saturday stressed the need for practical measures to make the country economically self-sufficient because all national affairs would be Afghanised by 2014, when foreign troops are to leave.

Addressing a meeting which the Ministry of Finance released its annual report on domestic revenue for the last solar year in Kabul, Khalili said all affairs would be controlled by local authorities after security transition was completed.

Although he did not go into details, the finance ministry has repeatedly said the international community’s assistance to Afghanistan will progressively decline after 2014.

Khalili said increasing domestic revenue was a good sign for the country’s economic development and had a direct impact on security, supremacy of law and governance.

It took more than a decade of efforts to bring the country’s war-ravaged economy to its present position, he said, asking the officials concerned to do more to make the impoverished landlocked country a prosperous.

A comprehensive strategy was needed to utilise the country’s untapped mineral wealth and encourage foreign investment in the sector, he said, urging all Afghans to take part in making the country self-sufficient.

Khalili said he had been supportive of every effort at increasing domestic revenue, banishing graft from government offices, brining transparency to all affairs and exploiting the country’s mining sector.

Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal called the one billion afghanis increase in domestic revenue a great achievement of the incumbent government.

However, he said a huge portion of income could not be collected due to certain problems. He said gross domestic revenue stood at id=”mce_marker”8 billion last year.

ma/mud

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