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The hotel helps fill a shortage of guest accommodation in the city The Afghan capital, Kabul, has a new, international standard five-star hotel, the first to be built since the fall of the Taleban four years ago. President Hamid Karzai opened the Serena hotel, which has been built around the remains of another hotel badly damaged by fighting.
It is hoped that it will help attract more business people to invest in the poverty-stricken country and in the longer term attract wealthy tourists.

His Highness the Aga Khan, Imam (spiritual leader) of the Ismaili Muslims, today attended the official inauguration of Afghanistan?s President Hamid Karzai, in a ceremony held in the former royal palace in Kabul. The inauguration ceremony was attended by more than 600 people, including more than 150 foreign dignitaries, among them U.S Vice President Richard Cheney, Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld and Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N. Special Adviser.

Kabul is currently in the midst of a hotel-construction boom, with many of the new or refurbished facilities planning to offer luxury accommodation for visitors to this devastated capital city.

Aga Khan Cultural Services (Afghanistan), a newly established affiliate of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC), will lead the revitalisation of a significant but currently degraded urban area in central Kabul around the historic Timur Shah Mausoleum.Under an agreement signed in Kabul on Tuesday with the Government of Afghanistan and the Municipality of Kabul, the AKTC will help provide area planning, conduct physical and social surveys, mobilize technical and financial support and undertake conservation work on the historic urban fabric of the City of Kabul in District 1, as well as landscap

Over the next few weeks Afghanistan's banking sector will move from comprising just six rundown specialist banks to one where several international commercial operations compete for business -- with perhaps even an ATM machine around the corner.
The National Bank of Pakistan is the only foreign bank operating in the country, but competition is building with First Micro Finance Bank, majority-owned by the Agha Khan Fund for Economic Development, and British-based Standard Chartered preparing to open soon.

Soucieux de promouvoir le commerce international et le rapatriement des avoirs des Afghans à l'étranger, le gouvernement afghan pousse à l'implantation des banques étrangères en Afghanistan, qui pourrait se traduire par l'rture de distributeurs automatiques de billets à Kaboul.

Prince Amyn Aga Khan, younger brother of His Highness the Aga Khan, today announced a substantial investment by the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development (AKFED) to initiate tourism, commercial and urban redevelopment in the capital of Afghanistan through the establishment of a world-class hotel in the centre of Kabul.

The Kabul Serena Hotel, which is being thoroughly refurbished according to Serena standards, is set amid handsome gardens overlooking Zanegar Park and a busy junction in the city's commercial centreKabul, Afghanistan, 23rd June, 2004 - The Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development (AKFED) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, charged with promoting private sector investment in the developing world, have signed a US$7 million investment agreement to finance the refurbishment and expansion of the Kabul Serena Hotel as part of a US$28 million project begu

Afghanistan to grant licences to first foreign banks in yearsAfghanistan ratified new commercial and central banking laws yesterday and would issue its first operating licences to private-sector banks this week, the country's top banking official said.

Afghanistan ( news - web sites) has licensed an international consortium led by the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development (AKFED) to set up its second mobile phone network, the fund said in a statement on Saturday.
The Geneva-based AKFED said it had a 51 percent stake in the project, while Monaco Telecom International (MTI) will hold 35 percent of the equity, U.S.-based MCT Corp nine percent and French telecoms giant Alcatel five percent.

AN international consortium formed by the Agha Khan's charity foundation has been named as Afghanistan's second mobile phone service provider after winning the country's first ever public tender contract.
The Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development (AKFED) was granted the Global System for Mobile (GSM) licence after beating six other bidders in a heavily scrutinised tendering process organised as the blueprint for future government contracts.

Philanthropist Karim Aga Khan, left, and Afghanistan's Interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai applaud a group of young Afghan girls, who sang and scattered glitter during a ceremony marking the start of the school year, Saturday, March 23, 2002, at Amoni High School in Kabul, Afghanistan. Girls will be allowed to go back to school for the first time in five years, since the fall of the Taliban, who prohibited girls from attending school. (AP Photo/Suzanne Plunkett)

Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman, in a historic visit to Afghanistan, today announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture intends to donate $5 million of U.S. agricultural commodities under the Food for Progress Program. Veneman also announced the first Cochran Fellowship Program with Afghanistan to provide short-term, U.S.- based training for eight Afghan women to study agricultural finance.

President Karzai
Your Excellencies
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen

It is my immense happiness and privilege to welcome you all as we celebrate the inauguration of one of Kabul's restored landmarks. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those professionals, architects, construction trades, staff and volunteers who have worked so hard, under so many constraints, to build this hotel and prepare it for today's opening.

H.E. Hamid Karzai, President of the Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan welcomed the visit today to Kabul of His Highness, Agha Khan, as a long-standing friend to the Afghan people.
During their meeting in the Presidential Palace, the President thanked His Highness Agha Khan for his contribution to the reconstruction of Afghanistan through the projects of the Agha Khan Foundation.

Insurgent violence wracks the countryside, but a building boom fueled by international aid, profits from the opium trade and foreign investment is remaking Afghanistan's dusty capital. The city even got its first five-star hotel Tuesday.
Four years after the Taliban's ouster, a shiny new office building rises amid Kabul's traditional mud-colored buildings, and there is a glitzy shopping mall boasting the country's only escalators. A bright U.S. Embassy is nearly ready, and suburbs of new homes are springing up.

But this city of 4 million people is far from being a metropolis.

War-battered Afghanistan, where using a cellphone is a frustratingly hit-and-miss affair, will get its second GSM network on Sunday, and the company providing it vows to make failed calls a thing of the past.
TDCA Ltd, trading under the name Roshan, meaning 'light' in the Dari language, is owned by a consortium grouping the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, Monaco Telecom International (MTI), U.S.-based MCT Corp and French telecoms giant Alcatel.

The Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) is pleased to announce that the Kabul Serena Hotel was officially inaugurated today by His Excellency President Karzai and His Highness the Aga Khan. The opening of the restored and expanded Kabul Serena Hotel, the former Kabul Hotel, is a milestone in Afghanistan's post-conflict redevelopment.Designed by award-winning architect Ramesh Khosla, the Kabul Serena Hotel will provide Kabul with much-needed accommodation for visitors to the city and will constitute an important post-war resource for Kabul residents.

The lobby is a dusty heap of rubble and fallen beams. The once-elegant lounge is piled with old sofas, sinks, and beds stripped from guest rooms. The former cigar bar is a series of dank, brick archways -- with no bar and no cigars.
Welcome to the Kabul Hotel. It is none too inviting in its current state, but come this fall the 110-room hotel will reopen with a five-star rating after a $26 million renovation. The project is part of a broader revival of the Afghan capital's hotel and restaurant scene that marks a fresh avenue in the country's efforts to rebuild following decades of war.

An Indian research team is in Afghanistan to carry out a survey for building a hydroelectric plant which will provide the Bamiyan region with electricity for the first time, a United Nations spokesman said on Sunday.
'It will be the first electricity generated for the central highlands,' Manoel de Almeida de Silva told newsmen. The team from the Water and Power Consultancy Services is studying the impact the dam will have on the Bamiyan region.