AFP
08/26/2003
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KABUL  - Italy has given shattered Afghanistan 36 million euros (39 million dollars) to build a road from Kabul to the central province of Bamiyan, the Afghan foreign ministry said Tuesday. Foreign Minster Abdullah Abdullah and Italian ambassador Domenico Giorgi signed an agreement Monday on building the road, the ministry said in a statement.

The grant would help create jobs, improve communications with Bamiyan and increase trade and economic activity in several provinces, Abdullah said. After 23 years of war and neglect, reconstruction of Afghanistan's battered road network is a top priority of the Kabul government as it struggles to improve communications and security in the 32 provinces.

President Hamid Karzai last Wednesday inspected one of the country's biggest road rebuilding projects, the reconstruction of a semi-circular highway from Kabul to the main southern city Kandahar and on to western city Herat.

The 180-million-dollar project, funded by the United States, Japan and Saudi Arabia, will repave about 1,200 kilometres (750 miles) of the giant highway by 2005.

Karzai visited the Kabul to Kandahar stretch, the main artery linking the capital and southern Afghanistan, which is expected to be fully paved by the end of 2003. US construction firm Louis Berger Group is overseeing its rebuilding.

Work on the Kabul to Kandahar road was suspended earlier this year after attacks on mine clearance workers but hundreds of Afghan police have since been deployed to patrol the highway.

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