LASHKARGAH, Afghanistan (AP):
AFGHANISTAN WILL encourage its powerful drug lords to invest their illegally earned profits back into the war-shattered country, according to the governor of the nation's top opium growing region.
The offer comes amid warnings of another bumper poppy crop that will fuel a booming narcotics trade that already accounts for 35 per cent of the impoverished nation's income.
"We as a government will provide them the opportunity to use their money for the national benefit," said Helmand Gov. Moham-med Daud during a two-day trip this week to the region by United States Ambassador Ronald Neumann.
"They must invest in industries. They must invest in construction companies," he said.
So profitable is the drug trade that it employs about one in 10 Afghans and brought in US$2.8 billion last year, Afghan and U.S. officials say. The vast majority of that goes to traffickers and only a fraction to the impoverished farmers.
