NEI’s mission is to eradicate malnutrition in Afghanistan by establishing a sustainable soybean industry that employs a full value chain of seed multiplication, cultivation, processing and market development. Last year, NEI made a commitment to produce 300,000 metric tons of soybeans for the next 10 years.

“This trip was a good experience to learn about Korea’s Saemaul Undong agricultural movement. We want to benefit from this development model by applying it to Afghanistan, which is in the same situation Korea was in after the war,” Khan Jan Alokozai, the presidential adviser on private sector development and food security, said in a press conference in Seoul on Thursday.

“Due to 40 years of devastating war, everything was destroyed in our country and we do not have much infrastructure left.”

Alokozai noted that following the Taliban regime’s demise, the international community, including the U.S. and Korea, provided relief of $800 million for rebuilding the education, health, transportation, construction and telecommunications sectors.

However, daunting challenges remain in the fledgling nation’s efforts to forge peace and order, as it aims to initiate nationwide development using foreign aid and investment, he added.

Noorullah Delawari, chairman of Economic Development for Peace and former governor of the Afghanistan Central Bank, said his country has continued to build infrastructure and amend laws to ease investment in line with Afghanistan’s five-year National Development Strategy.

Afghanistan’s per-capita income is under $700 and its economic growth rate is 1.4 percent a year. The country imports 96 percent of products and exports 4 percent. More than 85 percent of its 32 million people work in agriculture, with 60,000 in the soybean industry.

The total government budget is $7 billion, of which more than half is allocated to internal security. Government revenue makes up $2 billion of the national budget, while foreign aid comprises $5 billion. Life expectancy is around 45 for both men and women.

According to Alokozai, critical factors in the country’s future lies in its relations with neighbors Pakistan, Iran and China, the security situation with respect to the Taliban and Haqqani terrorist groups and the U.S. and NATO’s military commitment.

He pointed out that Afghanistan presents untapped opportunities for investment in roads, rails, mining, oil and gas, energy pipelines, power plants, food processing and packaging, logistics facilities, housing and consumer products and services.

The Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Industries, established 80 years ago, has offices in 25 provinces employing 85,000 people. It has joint chambers and business consuls in 14 major countries across the world.

The Afghan Embassy, Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United Nations World Food Program provided additional support for the trip, and a second delegation, of agricultural workers, will visit Korea in September.

Joel Lee (joel@heraldcorp.com)