Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Monday called for more international support to speed up his country's rebuilding process.

"I ask for your continued assistance in strengthening Afghanistan's institutions and the government's capacity to address the needs of its people. Help us to provide the services so desperately needed in this country," he said in his address delivered to the third Afghanistan Development Forum which opened in Kabul.

Expressing satisfaction over his administration's achievement, Karzai said that the war-shattered central Asian nation with the support of the world community had made major progress in various fields.

"Over the last three years, in partnership with the international community, we have made significant progress. Security, a precondition for our accomplishments in other areas, has greatly improved. We have fought and diminished terrorist forces in Afghanistan," he said.

Touching upon the booming poppy cultivation in the war-battered country and government agenda, the Afghan leader linked economic growth to poppy elimination, saying the government would fight illicit drug besides enhancing rural livelihood.

"Our rural development program will continue to grow and will be complemented by a national agricultural program aimed at increasing agricultural productivity and a program of providing alternative livelihoods to the poppy affected communities," he noted.

Afghanistan with an output of 3,600 tones of opium poppy in 2003 and over 4,000 tones in 2004 became the single largest producer of the raw material used in manufacturing heroin.

"Over the next five years, Afghanistan's income per capita will rise from today's US$200 to at least US$500, the present level of poverty will be reduced by half and that education, health and clean drinking water will be made available to a much greater number of Afghan citizens," said Karzai.

The forum, the first of its kind hosted by Afghanistan and the third held after the fall of Taliban in late 2001, will last three days. Delegates from over 60 donor nations and international organizations would review the implementation of the reconstruction projects over the past three years and chalking out new plans for the future.

(Xinhua News Agency April 5, 2005)