Afghan currency devalues

ISLAMABAD (NNI): The value of Afghan currency has sharply depreciated against foreign currency particularly against Pakistani rupee as the Afghans have to get one Pakistani rupee in exchange for 1000 Afghanis and approximately 54000 Afghanis against a US dollar, reports BBC.

The devaluation of the Afghan currency would further make this winter difficult for the Afghans. People are facing problems as a result of price hike and depreciation of the Afghan currency. Afghan currency has lost its value against all foreign currencies but its depreciation against the Pakistani rupee is very crucial and sensitive issue because most of the commodities are being imported from Pakistan.

Most of such food commodities, which are now being imported from abroad were earlier being produced in Afghanistan before the eruption of the Afghan war. Majority of the traders believe that immediate reason behind the sharp decline in the value of Afghan currency is that most of the people prefer to use foreign currency in major trade. Besides, a number of people who want to stock the money preserve foreign currency instead of Afghani.

An Afghan trader said that recent looting of hundreds of thousand of dollars from the Kabul currency market has sent wave of uncertainly among the traders community. Banking system is not operational in Afghanistan and the people mostly rely on dollars because if one wants to shift Afghanis worth few dollars from one place to other, he would needs boxes for it.

The money changers say that another reason for the devaluation of the Afghani is that the opponents of the Taliban are continuously printing Afghan currency and its influx into the Talibans controlled area is continuing. This currency is printed in another country and later provided to the opponents of the Taliban.