Around the middle of last year, the German media were writing quite euphorically about German corporate investment in Afghanistan. And the economic parameters are indeed extremely promising: the average growth rate has reached double figures every year since 2002, and inflation has remained relatively low during the same period. Yet the fact that Afghanistan is also a very dangerous country is regularly underlined by reports of kidnapped German civilians. As a result, German organizations and companies are still cautious in their activities in Afghanistan. Even so, economic relations between the two countries have improved in recent years. In 2000 Germany exported goods worth 16 million euros to Afghanistan; by 2007 the figure had risen to almost 142 million. In the other direction, Germany imported goods worth 5.1 million euros from Afghanistan last year – up from 3.6 million euros in 2006.
“There are no comprehensive figures on German corporate investment in Afghanistan,” says Nils Warner, an expert on Afghanistan at the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). “But what we can say is that German entrepreneurs are discovering Afghanistan despite their wariness.” In the context of Afghan-German development cooperation, the BMZ’s programmes since 2002 have concentrated on energy, drinking-water supplies, economic development and basic education. For example, the German technology group Siemens is involved in reconstruction in Afghanistan, developing the telephone network and modernizing two hydroelectric power plants, the construction group Hochtief is repairing roads, and Heidelberger Druckmaschinen (a printing press manufacturer) is setting up a training workshop in Kabul in collaboration with the German Society for Technical Cooperation (GTZ).
The example of a sugar factory in the Afghan province of Baghlan shows how such cooperation can function in practice: the shareholders in the New Baghlan Sugar Company include the German seed company KWS Saat, private Afghan investors and the Afghan government. The sugar factory started production at the end of 2006 and immediately offered an income for 500 farmers and 100 factory workers. In the medium term, the factory is expected to secure a livelihood for about 12,000 people and produce about 14,000 metric tons of sugar a year.
