Monday July 24, 2017
Kabul (BNA) President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan addressing the Tourism Seminar initiated by the Ministry of information and Culture at the Salam Khana Palace said: “We are the ones who have followed the past, but we trust in the future and build our future.” Lauding the country’s tourism, the president said tourism has historical, natural and cultural attractions and was very important for Afghanistan. “Afghanistan has played key role as the regional crossroad of trade, culture and idea in the era of Buddhism even during the Arians era and would continue doing such in the future,” said the president adding their studies about the ancient history of Bamyan has been from the manuscript remained from the visitors. He notified that Afghanistan, in the Islamic era, in addition to trade, had been the hub and the most important transition point of the transfer of ideologies and thoughts (e.g. Naqshbandia Style of worship) which had been created in central Asia and arrived to India through Afghanistan.
The president went on as saying that each period of our history can create its own tourism. “In our country, there are many sites with hidden relics from the past different historical eras.” He said Afghanistan’s civilization has been built beside the rivers with the surroundings of each one has been a great empire. “Mandigak for example has a history of at least 2 and half millennium and the history of Balkh, Herat and Badakhsan is evident for anyone,” said the president continuing that there is no important city f of the country which has hadn’t been the center of an empire. “So, we are all equal and have our own share in the country’s history.” Afghanistan can attract attention from up to 2 to 5 million of annual foreign tourists, after getting rid of terrorism’s evil, said the country’s president. Pointing to what he said big part of the country’s tourism had been based on cultural objects, the president added that as there were relation networks available in the country and they were trusting in each other, “We had traders from among Sikhs, Hindus, Jewish and Armenians.”
“Internal tourism is not only the connecting point of tourism in our country, but is the connecting point of our national unity, as any part of the country belonged to any Afghans and is our pride,” the president lauded. The president said they are focusing on repairing the country’s relics, but, beginning first from the ancient masjids (mosques), as he believed both masjids and abbeys links past to present. “Reconstruction work is going on in the Eidgah and other mosques, such as Kherqa-e-Mubarak, Herat Congregational Mosque and Rawza-e-Sharif and hundreds of other worship places should be repaired.” President Ghani asked the Ministry of Information and Culture (MoIC) to provide a plan to help how to specify the natural wealth of the country and added this was a big capital and should be classified as well as it should do its best to create natural parks and make a plan on how they could be managed.
Acting minister of Information and Culture, Prof. Mohammad Rassoul Bawari provided the gathering with information about the country’s tourism industry and said due to terrorist incidents in the country, region and the world, tourism industry had heavily harmed, and that this is why they had organized the seminar. “If the country’s tourism was not hate harsh by terrorism, Afghanistan could vie the region in tourism field,” said the acting minister. In Afghanistan, nearly 700 companies and 120 hotels working in tourism field are operational and up to 60,000 people are provided with job opportunities, said Prof. Bawari. He said the number of internal tourists were higher than those of the foreigners. “More than one million have visited Sakhi Shrine in Mazar-e-Sharif, more than one million visited Bagh-e-Babur in Kabul city, nearly 800 thousand people visited Bagh-e-Babur, of Kabul city and about 700,000 people visited Qargha recreational site during the past six months.” The ministry of information and culture has had a revenues of only 25 million afghanis, an amount far less than what was expected considering the tourism capacity. Deputy Administrative, Finance and Tourism Minister of the Ministry of Information and Culture, Sayyeda Muzgan Mustafavi, acting minister of borders and tribes, acting minister of higher education and other high ranking officials have attended the seminar.
