Afghan economy versus Dar’s Dogma

Recently, the World Bank released a report on Afghanistan while declaring a positive trend in the overall economic activities and growth in the country. Accoridng to the details, the headline year-on-year inflation in November 2022 decelerated to 9.1 percent from its peak of 18.3 percent in July 2022. It further said that the 3.9 percentage point Year-to-Year decline between November 2022 and December 2022 can be explained by a drop in inflation of fuel, wheat, sugar, cooking oil, and bread. According to the global lender, the exchange rate remains substantially stable against major currencies, whereas Afghan currency slightly depreciated against the USD, Euro, and Chinese yuan, while it got appreciation against the Pakistan and Indian rupees significantly.

Afghanistan, a war-hit nation has witnessed unending hostilities and communal unrest in the past while no institutional development, economic uplift, agriculture subsidies, and industrial revival occurred in the country over the past four decades. Afghan Central bank is still not linked with global banking mechanisms while a majority of local and foreign investors and entrepreneurs left Kabul after the Taliban takeover over one years ago. Besides, all those debacles and shortcomings, the country’s economy is in an upward direction while the Afghan currency has got appreciation against its regional rivals over the past year.

On the other hand, Pakistan, a 220 million-strong nuclear power and agricultural nation deprived of basic necessities including wheat flour, vanaspati ghee, sugar, rice, and pulses, while rising inflation, energy crisis, and sharp depreciation of the rupee vis-a-vis foreign currencies have become a permanent dilemma for the country. Awfully, Pakistan has no scarcity of resources, agri-land, industrial base, and hard-hitting labour, thus corrupt leadership and bureaucracy, disloyal strategists, and incompetent economists plunged the nation into unending miseries and fiscal woes.

This day, the Pakistani nation is utterly annoyed by its political leadership which reinvented the country’s early days after seven decades of the journey. Every other leader displayed a personalized approach toward national affairs that flourished his politics and business but hurt the national interest forever. In fact, Pakistan needs to take a rational approach to its domestic and foreign policies vis-a-vis its relations with other countries, because unwise measures destroyed our economy, emotional foreign policy damaged our global perception, and Afghan Policy pushed the nation into the menace of terrorism, social crimes, and depletion of resources. Today, all indicators of the Afghan economy are encouraging if peace prevails in the country while Pakistan’s had been stung by the most powerful corridor who earned a treasure of miseries in reward for their wrong choices.