KABUL, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Behind high villa walls in Kabul's
heavily guarded diplomatic district, restaurant owner Saju
D'Cruz sits in a sun-washed courtyard and gives himself two more
years in a country he has called home for a decade.
Like many other entrepreneurs in an Afghanistan bracing for
an exodus of foreign troops and aid workers in two years, D'Cruz
thinks business can only get worse at his popular Namaste Indian
restaurant, as expat customers vanish.
"Our customer base has decreased already. When international
forces leave, we'll shut down," he said, gazing out onto a small
lawn covered with empty plastic dinning tables.
D'Cruz came to Afghanistan from India after the 2001 ousting
of the former Taliban government, convinced the inrush of
political change would bring with it a demand from both Afghans
and foreigners for services taken for granted elsewhere.
While the Taliban had bought only their own austere brand of
oppression, Afghanistan's new freedoms saw businesses flourish,
transforming Kabul from a city of empty, pot-holed streets and
ruined suburbs into one of bustling shops and car-choked roads.
D'Cruz and his restaurant caught the investment wave as more
than $50 billion dollars in reconstruction money flooded in, but
now, like others, he is preparing for a receding tide, taking
businesses with it.
As one of many foreign investors who offers expatriates a
taste of comforts they enjoyed at home, D'Cruz employed Indian
chefs and imported his foods from India to inject authenticity
to his dimly lit restaurant.
With the average monthly salary of an Afghan in Kabul being
$300 or less, Namaste's dishes costing up to $18 a plate are out
of the reach of the majority of the Afghans who will be left
behind after 2014.
"It's a lot to pay for and keep up with, without a steady
customer base," he said.
The deputy chairman of Afghanistan's Chamber of Commerce and
Industries, Khan Jan Alokozai, said with the end-2014 deadline
for NATO's withdrawal telescoping in, D'Cruz's worries were
being reflected in hotels, restaurants, guest homes and real
estate, and even among companies supplying the Afghan and
foreign military forces.
Businesses had seen a 40 percent decrease in profits
already, with the expectation being only for worse, he said.
"We rebuilt Afghanistan. But we rebuilt it for foreigners,"
Alokozai said. "We didn't look at what our own people needed and
now that they are leaving, we'll have to rebuild it again."
Alokozai said while businesses like Namaste had mostly
appealed to foreigners, their closing would shut out vital job
opportunities in a country where one in three of its 30 million
population live below the poverty line.
If D'Cruz shuts his restaurant, for example, eight Afghans
will lose their jobs.
VACANT
The World Bank, in its most recent assessment of
Afghanistan, said while the economy had been expanding strongly
in the past few years, bolstered by big aid flows helping real
gross domestic product growth reach 8.4 percent in 2010/11, the
pullout was expected to cut that by about half.
Donors meeting in Tokyo last month promised civilian aid
worth $16 billion for Afghanistan over the next four years, but
tied to a much stronger effort by President Hamid Karzai's
unpopular government to combat the entrenched corruption that
has seen millions of aid dollars stolen.
D'Cruz's woes are echoed in Kabul's real estate market,
where luxury homes in areas once in high demand by diplomats and
foreign workers now have vacancy signs out front.
"Homes that used to up for rent for $10,000 a month are down
to $4,000. It's 90 percent due to the decrease of foreign
customers," said Shafikullah Mohammedi, a 35-year-old real
estate agent who has just moved to a smaller office to save
money.
Mohammedi, who lived for a time as a refugee in neighbouring
Iran, returned to Afghanistan in 2005 with his family to work in
what was then a booming property market.
Working mostly with foreigners, he used to rent out between
two and three homes a month. Now he struggles to let that many
in a year.
"I'm not sure what will become of the properties, they're
just sitting there," Mohammedi said.
"I haven't been able to rent anything to foreigners, and
none of my clients wants to lease their property to Afghans.
They'll never see the rent money," he said.
Afghan ministers met Karzai in March to discuss how to
restructure the economy to make it less reliant on aid and boost
income from potentially lucrative resource exports.
Geologists have identified large untapped mineral deposits
in Afghanistan, including iron, copper, lithium and gold, that
could be worth up to $1 trillion, if infrastructure and access
for miners was improved.
In October, major oil companies will bid for the rights to
explore oil and gas blocks in northern Afghanistan, which the
Economy Ministry says could produce $12 billion annually in
government revenue, and help the country achieve stability.
But for Mohammadi the government's plan may come too late.
"I don't want to plan to leave my country and become a
refugee again, but the way things are going I might have to," he
said.
(Additional reporting by Abdul Aziz Ibrahimi; Writing by Rob
Taylor; Editing by Robert Birsel)