Afghans worry as U.S. spending boom comes to an end --- For the past decade, billions of dollars in American aid poured into one of the world’s poorest countries, providing previously unimaginable opportunities to thousands of Afghan workers. -- Now, the boom is over. The Afghan economy, which had been expanding by as much as 14 percent a year, has slumped. Growth this year is expected to be just 3.2 percent, according to the World Bank. That slowdown reflects the declining American spending and also apprehension about security. -- President Obama’s announcement that U.S. troops will leave for good by the end of 2016 has only fanned Afghans’ concerns. The economy is a major topic in Afghan presidential elections Saturday. -- “People are worried — what will happen in the future?” said Yarbaz Hamidi, a businessman who has invested a half-million dollars in two private hospitals in Kabul. “I am also worried — what will happen to my investments?” --- Fears of economic collapse -- Since 2002, Congress has appropriated $103 billion to help Afghanistan rebuild its security forces, government and economy. During the past seven years, when the bulk of the money arrived, the U.S. aid has accounted for about 75 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, according to the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction. -- And that funding does not include the money the Pentagon spent in Afghanistan executing the war, for things such as maintaining basesand feeding the troops. --- The World Bank is cautiously optimistic that Afghanistan will avoid an economic collapse. It noted in an April report that the country is expected to receive about $8 billion in annual foreign assistance in the coming years. There is also $17.9 billion in U.S. funds that was approved but not spent, U.S. officials say. Obama has pledged that American aid will flow into Afghanistan for years to come. -- But the World Bank says the situation remains tenuous, with projections of a 5 percent growth rate contingent on security and the country’s ability to control corruption and tap its rich mineral deposits. -- In a nation wracked by decades of fighting — first a Soviet invasion, then civil war, then an ongoing conflict with the Taliban — many people fear that the government won’t be able to maintain order. Well-to-do Afghans have already started shifting assets abroad. -- “If this was just peacetime, you would probably have a minor recession,but this is wartime,” said Anthony H. Cordesman, a prominent national security analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “People panic. People protect themselves. They get out if they can. You don’t loan. You don’t invest. You basically wait.” --- Easy money -- Afghanistan remains a largely rural country in which broad swaths of the population don’t have electricity and the average annual per capita income is less than $500. -- Afghan officials are optimistic that they will avoid a deep recession. They say the U.S.-led coalition’s spending was too narrowly focused to have a direct impact on the wallets of most Afghans. -- “The way the investment was made in the country, it was not in an upward, efficient manner,” said Mohmmad Ismail Rahimi, director general of police and monitoring and evaluation for the Afghanistan National Development Strategy. He noted that the country’s poverty rate has remained about 36 percent in recent years. -- Indeed, many of the U.S.-funded reconstruction projects were hampered by theft and corruption. Auditors also have cited numerous cases of shoddy work, at times requiring projects to be halted and rebuilt from scratch. -- Some Afghans who benefited from the boom snapped up luxury purchases, including second homes in Dubai or Istanbul. But the U.S. spending also helped expand a small middle class in cities such as Kabul, and it enabled Afghans to help relatives and educate their children. -- According to coalition officials, more than 700 coalition bases, outposts and checkpoints have been closed or handed to the Afghan military or government since October 2011. With each closure, Afghan businessmen say, it’s become more difficult to obtain contracts. - More, Tim Craig, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/afghans-worry-as-us-spending-boom-comes-to-an-end/2014/06/08/ec9645a0-e995-11e3-9f5c-9075d5508f0a_story.html