The Work Bank Afghanistan Economic Monitor announced that inflation continues its downward trend to 9.1 percent in November 2022 from its peak of 18.3 percent in July 2022. According to the report, afghani to US dollar exchange rate has been stable during the last few months.
The World Bank report is highly different than what the Afghan citizens go through in their daily life in Afghanistan.
Many observers said that despite the encouraging figures published by the World Bank on the economic situation of Afghanistan, Afghan people currently struggling with a cold and difficult winter.
Poverty-stricken citizens are facing a harsh winter and must choose between heating materials for their homes and food.
According to observers, a constant flow of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan through the United Nations and other aid organisations has been impactful on the relative stability of afghani against the foreign currency.
Regarding people's access to their savings accounts, the report stated that restrictions on withdrawing money from banks continues to be a challenge.
Companies and individuals who had running accounts in the banks before the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban in 2021, cannot withdraw more than a limited amount from the bank.
The World Bank reported that the civil servants’ salaries have been paid on time in the last two months, and female employees have been paid more regularly than male employees.
However, withdrawing money has not been easy for these employees and they all complained that they had to wait for long hours at the banks.
Meanwhile, people and companies are now depositing little money into their bank accounts, and the financial policies of the Taliban are not transparent.
For example, the central bank of Afghanistan, which determines the foreign exchange rate, doesn’t provide any statistics or information on the issue on its website.
The World Bank report stated that revenue collection of the Taliban remains strong and reached AFN135.9 billion (US$ 1.54 billion) between March 22, 2021, and December 21, 2022.
The World Bank report also stressed that export performance of the Taliban remains strong as during the January to November 2022 period, the Taliban exported US$1.7 billion worth of goods, compared to US$ 0.9 billion and US$ 0.8 billion for the entire year in 2021 and 2020.
The increase in the price and export of coal has been the main reason for the increase in the Taliban's 2022 revenue collection.
According to the World Bank, agricultural products, mining, and textiles, have been the major sources of revenue and export materials of Afghanistan. Around 65 per cent of the products of Afghanistan has been exported to Pakistan and around 20 per cent has ended up in India.
