Central Bank calls on people to limit use of foreign currencies

Monitoring Desk

KABUL: The state-owned Central Bank of Afghanistan says the fluctuation of Afghani against foreign currencies is out of control therefore the bank will not be accountable to those who suffer losses from the exchange of Iranian and Pakistani currencies in Afghan markets. The bank called on the people to limit the use of Pakistani rupees and Iranian rial in their daily dealings.

According to the Central Bank, Pakistani and Iranian currencies are in circulation in more than 13 provinces. “I want to tell the people who use the currencies of the neighboring countries that they should use the Afghani currency in their daily business, because the fluctuation of foreign currencies is very high and they will suffer financial losses,” Sayed Ishaq Alawi, general manager of money politics in Central Bank, told TOLOnews.

Economic affairs analysts called on government to implement a suitable monetary policy to control the value of Afghani against foreign currencies in the local markets. “The Central Bank is unable to solve this problem because the branches of the bank in provinces are not working properly. It is the responsibility of the Central Bank to maintain the stability of Afghan currency,” said Romal Attal lecturer in a private higher education institution in Kabul.

The Central Bank say that country’s businessmen over-indebtedness to neighbors and the trading deficit of more than 90 percent in the country are the main reasons that that Afghanis have not been promoted throughout the country. According to the Central Bank statistics at the moment more than 26 billion Afghanis are in circulation in the country economy.

Last week, the Central Bank said the fall of Afghani against foreign currencies is temporary and that the value of the country’s currency will strengthen in the near future. The bank has injected over $2.2 billion USD into the country’s market to prevent the increase of prices of goods on the local market, officials said last week.

In the past few days the Afghani has dropped to 70 AFs for one US dollar. Central Bank injected over $500 million USD as an additional amount in to the treasury and the money raised gross foreign exchange reserves to over $8 billion, officials of the bank said.