A sea of difference between rich and poor Afghans

If you are looking for a Hugo Boss suit and just happen to be in Kabul, Hamed stores may be the place for you. At 200 dollars each, the suits that hang neatly from racks in the store are far cheaper than in the west. Owner Mohammad Rafi insists they are the real thing, imported from Turkey and Dubai.

The suits, the 14 dollars shirts and the 8 ties also symbolise a growing wealth gap in Afghanistan, where 70 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line on less than 2 dollars a day.

''It's the way it is everywhere,'' Rafi, 32, said with a fatalistic shrug. ''You have rich and poor but you have to keep on doing business.''

Rafi pays 5,050 dollars a month rent for his store in Kabul City Centre, the capital's swankiest mall and home to shops selling high-end clothes, jewellery, electronic goods and brand name shoes.

The mall opened 18 months ago, in better times for Afghanistan, and is a world away from the dusty streets outside.

Guards frisk visitors who pass through a metal detector but they also deter all but the better dressed Afghans from venturing into the mall's marble and glass interiors.

''It's too expensive here for 90 percent of the Afghans who come in,'' said Mohammad Yahya, a 32-year-old assistant in a store that sells Ecco shoes at 60 dollars to 200 dollars a pair.

''A lot of the people we call 'gawkers','' he said. ''They ask how much the shoes cost and when we tell them, they leave.''

Until a year ago, Yahya said he had been selling clothes to ordinary Afghans in one of Kabul's bustling bazaars. This, though, was better, he said.

Many of Afghanistan's wealthy few are citizens who returned from abroad after the US-led invasion toppled the Taliban in 2001, eager to invest in rebuilding their nation.

Others are senior government officials and warlords. Some have grown rich on corruption or the illegal trade in opium, which some estimates say accounts for 60 percent of Afghanistan's gross domestic product.

The disparity frustrates many Afghans, who see the ostentation and ask themselves what happened to the promise of a better life after the 2001 invasion and the billions of dollars of foreign aid pumped into reconstruction.

Five years on, basic services like running water, sanitation and electricity are still sorely wanting. Most homes in Kabul get electricity for just four hours every second night. Beggars remain a common sight.

The wealth gap dismays even some of the merchant class who cater to affluent Afghans.

Mohammad Reza Faiz returned to Kabul after 13 years in Iran three years ago with hopes that he could put his training as an agronomist to use in a job with the government.

''I was fed with the blood of the nation,'' Faiz, 39, said, referring to the education he got from Afghan public money. ''I wanted to do something in return.''

No job materialised so he opened a store in the Roshan Plaza Mall with his younger brother Samayullah, selling outfits imported from India and China to women at prices ranging from 14 dollars to 110 dollars.

''I regret coming back,'' Faiz said. ''The whole situation in Afghanistan looks bogus to me and I am looking for something better. If I got the chance, I'd leave.''

Business is no longer exactly booming either.

This year, Afghanistan has seen its worst violence since 2001, pitting a resurgent Taliban against Nato and Afghan forces. Of the 3,700 people killed, some estimates say one quarter are civilians.

A spate of suicide bombings and other attacks in Kabul has subsided in recent weeks. But the big spenders have not returned.

''It's finished,'' said Abdullah, the 42-year-old co-owner of the Omer Farooq car salesroom who like many Afghans uses only one name.

''The situation has got worse with the bombings and kidnappings and the people who returned from abroad have left again. They have stopped investing.''

Five days ago, Abdullah took delivery from Dubai of a new Lexus LX470 sports utility vehicle that now sits on his lot. He wants 90,000 dollars for it, about 22,000 dollars more than its list price in the United States.

''Before, we'd sell it in a week,'' he said. ''Now it could take one month or two months or three. We just don't know.''

Bureau Report