CIPE, ACCI Announce Release of Afghanistan Provincial Business Agenda
Washington, DC (PRWEB) November 10, 2015 -- The Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) and a coalition of 15 business associations in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, headed by the Nangarhar branch of the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI), today announced the release of the English translation of the Nangarhar Provincial Business Agenda (PBA) report.
The report, which contains a list of concrete policy recommendations aimed at improving the business climate in the province, was produced with the support of CIPE. Nangarhar province is located in eastern Afghanistan and is part of the main trading corridor with Pakistan.
Mukhlis Ahmad, Chairman of the Nangarhar branch of ACCI, called on the government to implement the PBA recommendations. “I call on the government to work with the business community of Nangarhar to implement the recommendations of this PBA report so that it won’t simply end up on bookshelves,” Ahmad said.
“This report gives business people from all over Nangarhar the opportunity to be actively involved in the policymaking process and to engage in dialogue with the government on economic policy reform,” CIPE Executive Director John D. Sullivan said. “The work of the business community in developing this comprehensive report and its recommendations has been very impressive.”
The report was originally launched on October 28, 2015 in Jalalabad, Afghanistan and is the product of over a year of meetings following an initial business summit in 2014 with over 400 participants from businesses in Nangarhar and neighboring Kunar and Laghman provinces. Saleem Khan Kundozi, Governor of Nangarhar, hosted the launch event. He welcomed the input by the business community and pledged to work with them to implement the recommendations raised in the report.
The CIPE-supported Provincial Business Agenda program is a grassroots effort to organize the business communities of four key Afghan provinces to engage in direct public-private dialogue with government officials to promote commercial and economic growth in the region. With a drawdown in international development assistance felt most strongly outside of the capital region, the PBA program aims to spur economic growth at the provincial level, where it is needed the most. PBAs for Herat, Balkh, and Kandahar provinces will be released in future months.
To read the report visit CIPE's website.
Ken Jaques, Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), http://www.cipe.org, +1 202-721-9245, [email protected]
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