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ACCI held its June
Networking Event….
Networking Events are series of
monthly events designed to provide the Afghan business community
and ACCI’s prominent members with access to national and
international contacts in an informal reception-styled setting.
Each event features a Chief Guest from high ranking officials of
the Afghan Government or the International Community who
delivers a 15 to 30 minutes speech about a specific topic
relevant to the economic development.
ACCI held its June Networking Event on July 23rd, at Kabul Serena
Hotel in which more than
200 participants including business leaders, international
organizations/Donor and NGO representatives, Commercial Attaches
of Embassies and senior government officials including
parliamentarians attended. This event featured H.E Karl
Eikenberry, US Ambassador in
Afghanistan
as the Chief Guest who discussed the “Afghan First Policy of USA and Its
implementation Status”. The event was inaugurated by M. Qurban
Haqjo the CEO of ACCI, followed with Welcome Remarks by Mr.
Mahmood Karzai, the 1st Vice-Chairman of ACCI.
Ambassador Eikenberry said “As most of you know, the Afghan
First policy encourages local procurement of Afghan products
made by Afghans to benefit and improve the well-being of the
Afghan people. Greater local procurement by our military and
civilian programs serves the mutual interests of both our
countries.
This policy enables procurement officers to favor Afghan vendors
over other competitors. For smaller contracts they can reach out
directly to Afghan suppliers to do business. For larger
contracts they can limit the competition to Afghan firms or
firms that employ a majority of Afghan citizens.
Acquiring more goods and services from Afghan companies boosts
employment, and fosters the competition and entrepreneurial
spirit essential to a growing free market economy.
Promoting and encouraging the purchase of Afghan products
and development of the Afghan labor force directly contributes
to our mutual goal of building long-term peace and prosperity in
this country.
Local procurement on the military side is booming with projects
like those through the United States led Combined Security
Transition Command – Afghanistan (CSTC-A) and its work with the
Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP)
which purchases 156,000 uniforms per month.
Afghans perform the cutting, sewing and finishing on the
products. Six Afghan
local manufactures share the contract, with 300 to 600 employees
each. CSTC-A is now
buying boots in country as well.
These boots price at $60-65/pair in
Afghanistan compared to $80-100 in the
United States.
Imported boots from Pakistan or China are cheaper but lower in
quality. In fact, a
$200 million tender for combat boots has just closed this week
and will be awarded to two to four Afghan firms.
USAID hires Afghans and contracts with Afghan firms in the
roads, energy, vertical construction, and agriculture sectors.
For example, USAID’s Strategic Provincial Roads Program
employs 5,500 Afghans who are building nearly a thousand
kilometers of roads.
Every design and construction contract goes to Afghan firms, and
includes hands-on training in how to meet international quality
standards.
Construction contracts require that 70 percent of the workers be
local, which spreads the employment and training benefits across
the country. Nearly
one thousand Afghans have worked on the new 105 megawatt power
plant in Tarakhil (Kabul) under the USAID Energy Program.
I’m pleased to announce this evening, the newest innovation
developed to support the Afghan First policy, a soon to be
launched Afghan First website.
AfghanFirst.org will offer a consolidated “how to”
website that will include all available solicitations from the
official
United States
contracting website FedBizOpps.gov.
The new site will also be available in Dari and Pashto
and contain, available opportunities with a synopsis of
solicitations to make the process easier for prospective
bidders, definitions of what constitutes an Afghan business,
specifications on how to submit a proposal, and links to related
websites.”
It’s also worth mentioning that, this event was proudly
sponsored by Gas Group and Kabul
Serena
Hotel (the Platinum
members of ACCI) who graciously collaborated with ACCI to make
this event a successful one. |
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