KABUL (SW) – Kabul has become host to the two-day “National Labor” conference aimed at combating unemployment and providing consultations to create job opportunities.
Mohammad Abdul Kabir, the political deputy of the Islamic Emirate’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said at the opening ceremony of this conference held on Tuesday, that unemployment in Afghanistan has been a legacy of the past governments and global cooperation is needed to eliminate it. He adds: “The Islamic Emirate has taken effective measures to reduce unemployment in the last three years. We have reached an agreement with the neighboring and Gulf countries to accept skilled and semi-skilled Afghans and provide them with legal documents. In the agricultural, industrial and mining sectors, we asked them to provide the ground and activate the transit ports.”
He urged the international community to remove the restrictions imposed on Afghanistan and accept this country as an active member of the international community in order to reduce the level of unemployment.
Amir Khan Muttaqi, Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, said that countries will be affected by the consequences of unemployment in Afghanistan, and therefore, they must cooperate with the Islamic Emirate to fundamentally solve this social problem.
“Unemployment also affects the countries of the world. The world should help the people of Afghanistan in this area. With the disappearance of drug planting, alternative planting is needed. Addicts were treated, they need work, the world has not fulfilled its responsibility in this sector, but has created restrictions,” he explained.
Ramin Behzad, head of the International Labor Organization in Afghanistan, assured cooperation with the Islamic Emirate to create job opportunities and said that this organization has plans to reduce the unemployment level in Afghanistan.
Behzad said: “We are doing effective work to support small and medium enterprises with the cooperation of the United Nations. In two years, we have created one million job opportunities and we have provided assistance to 40,000 medium and small enterprises in the financial or technical sector.”
On the other hand, the representatives of the industry and agriculture sectors say that there are good job creation capacities in these sectors, but these sectors need support.
Nooruddin Azizi, head of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, said: “We ask the private sector to complete the value chain of their products and then export. Raw materials should be processed and exported. In this way, a large number of job opportunities will be created. Today, hundreds of foreign companies have approached and want to make large investments in Afghanistan.”
Officials in the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs say that in this two-day conference, the causes of unemployment in Afghanistan has been comprehensively examined and comprehensive and basic solutions would be presented to reduce the level of unemployment.
