Afghan gov't sets up land authority to ease land management

In efforts to revive economy and promote agricultural development in the war-shattered Afghanistan, the Afghan government has set up a new land department - Afghanistan Land Authority, to coordinate land issues and ease land management across the country, Chief Executive Officer of the newly established body said Tuesday.

"Afghanistan Land Authority planned to launch a survey and register over 25,000 hectares of land in the next one year and with issuing new regulations will make it easy for private sector and farmers to rent the public lands across the country and invest, " Ahmad Shaheer Shahriar told a news conference here.

"In the current regulations it took a farmer or agriculture firm six to 12 months and over 50 signatures were needed to rent a piece of public land to invest but with the new rules a farmer or invester would finish the procedures in only six weeks," he stated.

He also said the authority is tasked to fight with powerful individuals who have illigally occupied thousands of hectares of governmen land in the country.

In Afghanistan there is 8 million hectare arable and if brought under cultivation the country's economy and agricultural products would be considerablty improved, he further said.

However, the three decades of war have had a devastating impact on Afghan agricultural sector, a country with over 80 percent of population relying on agricultural product.

Source: Xinhua