Afghanistan signed 46 cooperation agreement worth 5.5 billion USD with donor countries

H.E. Dr. Mohammad Humayon Qayoumi, Acting Minister of Finance and Chief Advisor on Infrastructure to H.E. the President, has shared the achievements of Ministry of Finance over the past year through a press conference held in Government Media & Information Center (GMIC).
In the conference, Mr. Qayoumi has provided information to the participants regarding collection of domestic revenue, expenditure of development budget of Ministry of Finance, reform, building new systems and anti-corruption efforts.
Additionally he gave them information about reform in revenue resources, IMF review of Afghanistan's financial and economic reforms, obtaining the best rank in implementation of business doing indicators, launching economic JEC, JCMB ,PPP meetings, Geneva Conference and other important issues.
"The revenue target in budget document was to collect 172 billion AFs which fortunately we managed to collect 189.78 billion AFs. It shows 9% increase compared to the target set by IMF," said acting Minister of Finance. "The total revenue collected include 76.47 billion AFs from the customs department and 112.17 billion AFs from the tax and non-tax revenue sectors," he added. 
"Ministry of Finance managed to increase domestic revenue from 99 billion to 189 billion AFs over the past four years which represents an increase of 90%," said Mr. Qayoumi.
According to Acting Minister, Ministry of Finance managed to increase its development budget expenditure from 46% to 95% considering the principle of transparency, sufficiency and effectiveness.
"Last year, the expenditure of development budget at the government level was 67% which fortunately has increased 91.5% this year. It means that we implemented the most development projects since the beginning of National Unity Government. The main reasons for increasing development budget expenditure of the departments are: involving people in budget process, allocating budget based on capacity of budgetary units, brining reforms in preparation of budget and facilitating implementation of allotments," stated acting Minister of Finance.
"Over the past four years we made many reforms in revenue resources such as: installation of e- systems, transparency in resolute support mission oil tax exemption, having accurate information about exports and imports, amendment of tax law including income tax law, tax administration and value added tax act. The implementation of 95% tax exemption penalty, reform and building new system for ministries in order to increase our revenue, to implement filling process at the taxpayer's office were also parts of reform we have made. IMF confirmed Afghanistan's financial and economic reforms and its achievements in its fourth review and provided 6.2 million USD to the government of Afghanistan," said Dr. Qayoumi.
"Likewise, at the 16th review of the World Bank in 2017- 2018, Afghanistan ranked the top 10 performer of business indicators and its score has increased record 10.64 points and has gone up 16 rankings from 183 in 2018 report up to 167 in 2019 report".
"Ministry of Finance has taken tireless steps toward anti-corruption efforts, sending 27 cases of counterfeiting to the Attorney General's Office, handling 200 tax cases and reviewing 350 cases of complaint." "Additionally, confirming more than 82 billion AFs income dues, stopping suspicious customs and non-customs paid vehicles, registering staff  assets in revenue resources from the first to sixth grade (rank) confirming 16.7 billion AFs expenditure dues of the departments and establishing a money laundering committee were have been parts of Ministry of Finance reform over the last year," he added.
"We managed to sign 46 cooperation agreement worth 5.5 billion USD with donor countries and organizations".
Mr. Qayoumi said that Ministry of Finance successfully launched economic and trade commission with Uzbekistan and Saudi Arabia. In the commission, trade, economic, transit, investment and other important issues were discussed and several agreements were signed.
Acting Minister of Finance added that, in Geneva Conference, foreign ministers of 62 key countries and qualified representatives of 35-donor organizations cooperating with Afghanistan have participated. In Geneva Conference, Afghanistan's commitment and achievements were reviewed under mutual accountability framework and donors confirmed them. They reassured their continued support to Afghanistan.
In the conference, implementation new salary was the central point of Minister of Finance. According to the new scale, lower-level employee's salaries will increase and the salaries of high-ranking officials will reduce. A balance would appear in salary payments and the differences and patent salaries would be eliminated.