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The President of Afghanistan, Mr Hamid Karzai, flanked by Mr Arun Bharat Ram (right), former president, CII, and Mr Y. K. Modi, Senior Vice-President, FICCI, at a luncheon meeting in the Capital on Thursday.

NEW DELHI, March 6

AFGHANISTAN had renewed hopes of support from the Indian industry, the President of Afghanistan, Mr Hamid Karzai, said here today.

Addressing captains of industry at a meeting here, Mr Karzai said that Afghanistan hoped to get support from the Indian industry to help in the reconstruction of the devastated country.

The meeting had been jointly organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). During the address, Mr Karzai highlighted the progress made in Afghanistan during the last one year and termed it as substantial in comparison to the state of the nation when it started the rebuilding process.

Outlining the steps that Afghanistan had taken to achieve better growth, Mr Karzai said that his country had approved an investment law, which would help protect domestic and international investments. The President added that a committee had been set up to clear investment proposals on an emergency basis and it had already cleared 2,000 investment projects.

Assessing the significance of India as a partner to the Afghan development process, Mr Karzai said that India was one of the closest nations to Afghanistan in terms of culture, history, aspirations and geography. It was almost natural for the Afghan business community to look towards India, the President said.

Lauding the trade ties between India and Afghanistan, he said that the nature of trade had been altered during the last few years. Bilateral trade was not restricted to traditional items such as spices, tea, textiles and silks, but had begun expanding to newer sectors such as software, engineering, healthcare and automobiles. Mr Karzai reiterated that there was immense mutual benefit in extending bilateral economic ties.

Meanwhile, the CII today signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the National Institute of Information Technology (NIIT) for opening an information technology centre in Kabul.

The MoU is to see NIIT empower women students in Afghanistan with IT skills besides helping to train the trainers and offer technical know-how. It is also to see that the institute provides course material free-of-cost to the Afghan Government to train 5,000 students on `Swift jyoti for women' programme for one year.

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