KABUL - The Council of Ministers held their first economy related meeting at Sedarat in Kabul on Tuesday headed by the Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, who stressed that reforms in the economy sector must be made.

During the meeting, Abdullah ordered the Ministry of Finance (MoF) to clear the circumstances of the budget deficit and issued a decree to the Central Statistic Office (CSO) to identify the number of unemployed in the country.

"The issue of the economy is important to the people of the nation after security," Abdullah said. "This matter is important to the people of the country."

Just a few months ago, the MoF had stated that the country had a deficit of 21 billion AFS.

Throughout the meeting Abdullah assigned several ministries to report back to him on certain matters brought up at the first economy meeting. The Ministry of Commerce and Industries (MoCI) was ordered to provide numbers on the amount of exports and imports.

"The country's economy is reliant on the trade business and unfortunately we do not have sufficient amounts of exports, therefore I want the MoCI to provide a report of the number of imports and exports."

The officials, who attended the meeting, stressed that if the international community does not assist Afghanistan and its economy, the Afghan government will face difficulties in paying employee salaries. (Tolonews)