Afghan frontier town leads minor economic boom
Tuesday, February 1 9:44 AM SGT            

KHOST, Afghanistan, Feb 1 (AFP) - This southeastern Afghan border city, near where US cruise missiles slammed into an alleged terrorist camp in 1998, has been transformed from a dusty backwater into the centre of a small but badly needed economic boom.

Residents earn more than in the capital Kabul and rents are up to four times as high, largely due to a resurgence in trade from nearby Pakistan since the ouster of the communist regime in Kabul in 1992 by Afghan mujahideen.

Goods from oranges to a new Land Cruiser jeep are valued in Pakistani rupees rather than the local afghani, although shopkeepers still reluctantly accept afghani as a second option.

Like the currency, Pakistani goods such as flour and other food, medicines, spices and clothes dominate the city's markets, with carpets and dry fruit from Kabul being the only homegrown products on display.

The rupee is in circulation in other parts of Afghanistan, but not as the only common currency.

Khost, a remote moutainous province famous for its oak forests, is 35 kilometers (20 miles) from the Pakistani border.

About 350 kilometers from Kabul, it is inhabited by ethnic Pashtoon tribes and has a bustling economy helped by firewood exports and money sent home by Khosti labourers working in the Persian Gulf.

The foreign currency influx has made the province relatively rich, attracting labourers from other cities of the war-torn country for a better livelihood.

"One or two members of each family work in the Arab countries," Shah Lala, a local resident, said.

"The rupee became common after Mujahideen groups captured the city from the communists," said Zalmai Khan, a druggist.

Nematullah a young man from Charasiab district of Kabul, said he earned 50 to 60 rupees (about one dollar) every day carrying goods on his home-made push cart.

"I could not make even one-third of this in Kabul," he said, adding that his father, a mason, moved with his family to Khost four years ago.

In Kabul a civil servant is paid only five dollars a month.

The monthly rent of a shop in the city's downtown is at least 3,000 rupees, four times more for a shop in the same location in the capital, Kabul.

Officials said the rent drastically came down recently after the local administration built four big markets. A huge modern mosque is also being built in the central area with Arab donations.

Locals said that around 65 million rupees (1.3 million dollars) had so far been spent on the mosque with a dome and two rising minarets.

Local tribesmen have demanded assurances from the ruling Taliban, who control most of the country, that tax revenues are spent inside the province and state land is not sold to outsiders.

In August 1998, the US fired dozens of Cruise missiles at suspected terrorist camps allegedly run by Saudi-dissident Osama bin Laden to the south of Khost city.