After my twenty years bank management career including 16 years as Vice President of the International Division of Lloyds Bank California, I returned to my country of birth, Afghanistan, to re-establish its, banking system, which was severely damaged during two decades of war and lawlessness.

I was able to utilize my American education and financial management experience to rebuild the country’s banking system. When I arrived in Afghanistan, four different bank notes issued by powerful warlords were in circulation, two thirds of which were printed and circulated outside the Central Bank’s control. In order to introduce a sound monetary policy, we had to replace all the existing banknotes in circulation with a new issue. This process was accomplished within a period of six weeks where twenty thousand tons of old banknotes were collected and destroyed in thirty two provinces of Afghanistan without a single incident of looking or disturbance. The key factor in our success was my ability as the project manager to negotiate and gain support of community leaders. This accomplishment paved the way to bring the economy under a professional management of the government and the Central Bank. Also it created a suitable environment for the international community to provide economic assistance to the country.

The second major contribution, which I made to Afghanistan, was the establishment of a one-stop shop for investment in the country. As a Minister Advisor to President Karzai, I founded an organization called Afghanistan Investment Support Agency (AISA) where the time to enable an investor to establish a business was reduced from six months’ time to only four days. In order to do so, I had to convince all sectorial government departments to do away with bureaucracy and massive waste to simple five step process under the authority of Afghanistan Investment Support Agency empowered by a new Investment Law of Afghanistan.

During two terms as Governor of the Central Bank of Afghanistan from July 2004 to November 2007 and, again, from November 2010 to December 15, 2014, I was responsible for enactment of over 11 legislations including the Central Bank Law, Afghanistan Commercial Banking Law, Mortgage Law, Anti Money Laundering and Combating Terrorism Law as well as Leasing Law.

In spite of currency change over as stated above, I was able to maintain a reasonable exchange rate and single digit inflation rate in the country. The Central Bank of Afghanistan is being rated as one of the best performers during the periods which I served as its Governor and Chairman of Supreme Council of the Bank.

During the years 2008 to 2010, I worked on major investment projects in Afghanistan such as the Kokcha Irrigation Dam under a $6 billion World Bank financing arrangement and Casa 1000, which will transmit electricity from Central Asia to Pakistan and India as well as the licensing of over twenty three thousand new companies during my leadership as the CEO of Afghanistan Investment Support Agency.