Staff Reporter Islamabad
SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) Sunday called upon the interna-tional community to support Afghanistan economi-cally to help rebuild one of the world’s poorest state.
Talking to a delegation of senior lawyers led by Mian Jaffer Hussain, President SAARC chamber Iftikhar Ali Malik said it was equally essential for the international players and major donors to stay engaged in order to support the people of war torn Afghanistan and restore it’s totally collapsed econ-omy.
He said the Taliban have promised to improve Afghanistan’s economy but new regime badly needs foreign aid.
Other members of delegation included Mian Mahmood Ahmad Qazi, Junaid, Jawwad Tariq Na-sim, Asif Nazir Awan, Jalil Ur Rehman, Shafique Butt, Mian Dawood, Anas Sh and Ayesha Shafique.
He said “Afghanistan is tremendously de-pendent on foreign aid which is about 10 times or even more than the Taliban has been able to obtain from its own finance”.
He said that aid flow in 2020 represented 42.9 percent of Afghanistan’s $19.8 billion GDP. Af-ghanistan’s economy was shaped by fragility and aid dependence, he added.
Iftikhar Ali Malik said the Afghan economy has taken a hit during the Covid-19 p andemic and the new regime of Taliban has acknowledged that it cannot improve the situation without foreign help.
