KABUL (SW) – Officials at the central bank, Da Afghanistan Bank say that the inflation rate in the country has decreased by nearly six percent during the current solar year, compared to a year ago.
According to the statistics presented by the officials of the bank, the inflation rate in the country is now negative 2.8 percent, and this figure was negative 3.5 percent in the last solar year.
Officials at the DAB cite maintaining the value of the afghani currency against foreign currencies, preventing money smuggling outside the country, and imposing restrictions on money transfers, among the reasons for the decrease in the inflation rate in the country.
Ahmad Javad Sadad, the general director of the monetary policy at the DAB, told the annual accountability press conference: “Based on the figures available to us from the National Bureau of Statistics and Information, it shows that the inflation rate has reached negative 2.8 percent in the month.”
At the same time, officials at the DAB added that in the past year, the afghani currency has increased in value by 4.4 percent against foreign currencies. According to the officials of this bank, maintaining the value of the currency against foreign currencies has played the most important role in reducing inflation in the country.
Officials of the bank assured efforts to maintain the value of the afghani against foreign currencies and at the same time emphasized that they will address the existing complaints about the existence of worn money in the market by providing newly printed banknotes.
Hedayatullah Badri, head of the bank, said: “Da Afghanistan Bank has been able to maintain the value of the afghani currency against foreign currencies by implementing a reasonable monetary policy in the past year and has taken effective measures in this regard. ”
This is despite the fact that Afghanistan’s banking system has not yet returned to normal after the political transformation in the country nearly two years ago, which led to the re-establishment of the Islamic Emirate and international sanctions.
Officials at the bank say that they have solved the banking restrictions in the country’s banking system to some extent. Mohammad Youssef Salim, general director of Islamic Banking at the Da Afghanistan Bank, said: “Restrictions on withdrawing bank deposits have been lifted to some extent. Currently, individual account owners can withdraw up to 600 US dollars in a week while this figure was 400 dollars before.”
It should be mentioned that after the return of the Islamic Emirate, billions of dollars in the capital of the state reserves were freezed by the US. Some 3.5 billion dollars of the Afghan state reserves are kept in a trust fund in Switzerland.
ENDS
