War-torn Kabul to sign huge expansion deal: officials

Afghanistan is to sign a contract to build 13,000 new homes, the government's project manager said today, in a scheme that contrasts to widespread pessimism about the country's future.
The deal would see 64,000 residents accommodated in new houses built over the next eight to ten years at a site to the north of Kabul, Gholam Hassanzada, chief executive of the government's development authority, told AFP.
"We will sign a contract with IHFD in the next two to three weeks," Hassanzada told AFP, referring to the Colorado-based company International Home Finance and Development.
Under the deal, IHFD will seek to raise USD 1.2 billion of funding to complete the project, he said.

The contract is one of several to be signed for the construction of "Kabul Green City", a hugely ambitious USD 80 billion project that could eventually accommodate three million people and take 30 years to complete.
The start of construction work will be marked later this month with a ceremony at the site between Kabul and the Bagram military airbase.
Kabul city remains badly scarred by decades of war with many houses in ruins and main roads covered in pot-holes despite 11 years of international aid since the extremist Taliban regime was ousted in 2001.