6. Despite the progress of the past few years, Afghanistan is
extremely poor, landlocked, and highly dependent on foreign aid,
agriculture, and trade with neighboring countries. Much of the
population continues to suffer from shortages of housing, clean
water, electricity, medical care, and jobs. Criminality, insecurity,
and the Afghan Government's inability to extend rule of law to all
parts of the country pose challenges to future economic growth. It
will probably take the remainder of the decade and continuing donor
aid and attention to significantly raise Afghanistan's living
standards from its current status, among the lowest in the world.
While the international community remains committed to Afghanistan's
development, pledging over $24 billion at three donors' conferences
since 2002, Kabul will need to overcome a number of challenges.
Expanding poppy cultivation and a growing opium trade generate
roughly $3 billion in illicit economic activity and looms as one of
Kabul's most serious policy concerns. Other long-term challenges
include: budget sustainability, job creation, corruption, government
capacity, and rebuilding war torn infrastructure.

Akrotiri
Economic activity is limited to providing services to the
military and their families located in Akrotiri. All food and
manufactured goods must be imported.

Albania
Lagging behind its Balkan neighbors, Albania is making the
difficult transition to a more modern open-market economy. The
government has taken measures to curb violent crime and reduce the
large grey economy. The economy is bolstered by annual remittances
from abroad of $600-$800 million, mostly from Albanians residing in
Greece and Italy; this helps offset the towering trade deficit.
Agriculture, which accounts for about one-quarter of GDP, is held
back because of lack of modern equipment, unclear property rights,
and the prevalence of small, inefficient plots of land. Energy
shortages and antiquated and inadequate infrastructure contribute to
Albania's poor business environment, which make it difficult to
attract and sustain foreign investment. The planned construction of
a new thermal power plant near Vlore and improved transmission and
distribution facilities eventually will help relieve the energy
shortages. Also, the government is moving slowly to improve the poor
national road and rail network, a long-standing barrier to