Afghan economy looks for new life from exports

KABUL, Afghanistan -- In a dim, dusty factory thick with the peaty aroma of overripe fruit, 16 women dip their hands in vats of paraffin oil and toil -- for their paychecks and for the new Afghanistan.

The Majidi Raisin Co., a low-slung building east of Kabul, packages and ships oil-coated raisins from the once-fertile Shomali Plain. Like 90 percent of Afghanistan's raisins, most that leave the premises these days will be consumed by Afghans. But it wasn't always that way.

"We would send raisins to London, China, Russia, all over," says the factory's shipping chief, Afizullah Habibi. "And we will again. We have to get our export market going again if we're going to get our country going again."

Sweet and sticky, the Shomali raisin is a cornerstone of Afghanistan's economic future. Other Afghan products include raw marble, leather goods, textiles and carpets -- intricately woven carpets with a worldwide reputation.

These are the components of what Afghanistan hopes will be the resurgence of an export market all but dormant for a decade -- and a way to return economic prosperity to a country all but cut off from the world for nearly a generation.

Since the Taliban fell in November, much has come into Afghanistan -- foreigners, money, aid -- but little has gone out. Afghan officials believe a robust export sector can stimulate development, which in turn encourages stability.

That's no easy task in a nation whose entire industrial infrastructure lies in ruins.

As industry in the capital takes baby steps toward normalcy, confidence is fashionable. And a growing chorus is bubbling up to get the country's export markets running again.

Ashraf Ghani, development adviser to interim government chief Hamid Karzai, sees an entire campaign -- complete with "Made in Afghanistan" and "Made by Afghan Women" labels to create a buzz.

Asked about exports, he grows enthusiastic as he rattles off the possibilities -- cumin, saffron, textiles, organically grown vegetables. Dried foods? "An enormous asset." Marble? "Some of the best in the world."

Chris Patten, the European Union's commissioner for external affairs, is optimistic, too -- and ready to help.

During his visit to Kabul last month, he said he envisions Afghanistan exporting "everything from cut flowers to food products to manufactured goods." But, he says, "You have to help poorer countries achieve those standards that consumers in richer countries understandably insist on."

Afghanistan once exported to the United States and many European countries. But after communist rule crumbled in 1989, the factional warfare of the 1990s and the rule of the Taliban militia kept the flow of goods erratic and foreign buyers skittish.

Exports slouched into a hodgepodge of sporadic efforts, and now only Russia buys Afghan products in any quantity. No one knows how bad it is; statistics haven't been kept for more than a decade.

"There's no short-term solution. I think Afghans could develop simple industries and produce some things, probably in the textile and simple manufacturing areas, and export them. But it takes time," says Tony Rusek, an economist at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pa., who studies developing nations' exports.

"Until they establish an economic system," he says, "all Afghan exports will be essentially elevated smuggling."

The government must overcome another obstacle. The close relationship between Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan's North West Frontier Province has produced a tradition of goods picked or produced in Afghanistan being packaged and sold next door.

"Then it goes out of Pakistan as a Pakistani export," Majeed says. "We have to get it back to the right channels."

The Commerce Ministry is weighing incentives to get things moving, including waiving custom duties, lending money to exporters and standardizing bank transactions to increase the confidence of foreign buyers as they trickle back.

Most importantly, Afghanistan is trying to leverage the attention being paid to it at this moment in its history.

"For 10 years, there have been no foreigners here. We have lost our knowledge," he says. "But now foreigners are back. This is the time. We have no time to lose. We must start now."