Zeenews.com Saturday, November 18, 2006
Karzai seeks Indian investment in Afghanistan
New Delhi, Nov 18: Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday said his country needed Indian investment in various sectors and assured that visas would be made easy for Indian entrepreneurs visiting there.
"Wasting time for getting visas is not good anyway. We will make visas easy for you," Karzai said while addressing the concluding session of the Afghanistan regional business conference here.
He, however, remained non-committal on providing visa-on-arrival for Indian tourists and entrepreneurs visiting Afghanistan.
Seeking to allay apprehensions on the security situation in Afghanistan, Karzai said his country was "picking up". There was opportunity for Indian industrialists to invest there in power, infrastructure and other sectors.
"My government has not done enough to portray new Afghanistan. We will have to find a way to do it," he pointed out.
He said his government was gradually chopping off red-tape and state-controlled mechanism saying "we will privatise power generation."
Pointing out that companies like coca cola and others from the banking sector, including from India, had invested in Afghanistan, Karzai asked the media to portray the "real picture" of the country "which offers great potential to entrepreneurs".
"There is opportunity for you. The story is much better and bigger than what you see on TV," Karzai said, assuring that business establishments would be provided a safe environment in the country.
Bureau Report