AFGHANISTAN

Cursor: Foreign Investors Take A Pass On Karzai's Afghanistan

Since the "end" of the war in Afghanistan, no major foreign equity investment in either the goods or the resources-producing sectors has been made, notwithstanding President Karzai's frantic travels abroad seeking to woo investors.

This contrasts sharply with Afghanistan under the Taliban [1996-2001], when both the giant U.S. oil firm UNOCAL, committed to building a trans-country gas pipeline and a private New Jersey-based enterprise, Telephone Systems International Inc., secured a license from the Taliban to set up an integrated, high-tech communications network costing $240 million1.

The Taliban for all their faults, were able to put in place a degree of political stability and means to enforce contracts - after all, in one year they reduced poppy cultivation to next to nothing.