New era for Afghanistan starts with long queues, rising prices - CNA

Taliban officials have said the problems will ease once a new government is in place to restore order to the market and have appealed to other countries to maintain economic relations. But the structural problems run deep.

Even when its economy was floating on a tide of foreign money, growth was not keeping pace with the rise in Afghanistan's population.

Apart from illegal narcotics, the country has no significant exports to generate revenue, and aid, which accounted for more than 40 per cent of economic output, has abruptly disappeared.

A new central bank chief has been appointed but bankers outside Afghanistan said it would be difficult to get the financial system running again without the specialists who joined the exodus out of Kabul.

"I don't know how they will manage it because all the technical staff, including senior management, has left the country," one banker said.

In a sign of the pressure on Afghanistan's currency reserves, the Taliban have announced a ban on taking dollars and valuable artefacts out of the country and said anyone intercepted would have their goods confiscated.

Some US$9 billion in foreign reserves is held outside the country and out of reach of the Taliban's embryonic government, which has still not been officially appointed, let alone recognized internationally.

To add to the problems, a recent suicide attack by an Afghan offshoot of Islamic State on crowds waiting to get a place on evacuation flights brought a chilling reminder that the bombings that were a regular feature of life in the past may not be over.

"The market situation had slightly improved in the last few days," said one vendor at a Kabul street market where people sell household goods to raise cash. "But it completely collapsed after the suicide attack near the airport."

Adblock test (Why?)

https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiXmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNoYW5uZWxuZXdzYXNpYS5jb20vYXNpYS9hZmdoYW5pc3Rhbi10YWxpYmFuLXJ1bGUtZWNvbm9teS1wcmljZXMtaW5mbGF0aW9uLTIxNDk3NTHSAQA?oc=5

2021-09-01 14:34:00Z
52781790291094