With the publication of its new report on Afghanistan's economic situation, the World Bank announced a 90% increase in exports, stability of the exchange rate, and a decrease in inflation in the first nine months of 2022.

Afghan Voice Agency (AVA) - Kabul: The World Bank has announced in its latest report on the economic situation of Afghanistan, while food and non-food items are widely available to the people and consumer price index inflation continues to decline.
 
Reduce inflation
According to the World Bank report, Afghanistan's annual inflation in November 2022 decreased to 9.1 percent from a peak of 18.3 percent in June 2022. The decrease of 3.9 percentage points year-on-year between November 2022 and December 2022 can be attributed to the decrease in inflation of fuel (8 percentage points), wheat (5.1 percentage points), sugar (2.7 percentage points), edible oil (2.2 percentage points), bread (1.5 percentage unit) etc. explained.
According to the latest data collected by the Third Party Monitoring Agency (TPMA), most food and non-food staples are available in the Afghan market.
 
Maintaining the value of the national currency
The report further states that the value of Afghanistan's national currency (Afghani) has been remarkably stable against major foreign currencies. The Afghani depreciated slightly against the US dollar (1.5 percent), the euro (1.2 percent) and the Chinese yuan (0.2 percent) from the end of June to the end of December 2022, but against the Pakistani rupee (24.8 percent) and the Indian rupee (2.6 percent). Increased.
The World Bank emphasizes that most Afghan government employees have reported receiving their salaries regularly; however, they declare lack of liquidity as one of the important challenges in collecting salaries and crowding in bank branches.
 
Increase in government revenue
The report shows that the Islamic Emirate earned 135.9 billion Afghanis, equivalent to 1.54 billion US dollars, in the first nine months of fiscal year 2022 (March 22 to December 21).
The World Bank emphasizes that Afghanistan relied heavily on revenues collected at the borders, so that in the period under discussion, taxes at the borders reached 58 percent of the Islamic Emirate's total revenue.
According to this report, revenues from domestic sources reached 61 billion Afghanis ($0.7 billion) from March 21 to the end of December 2022, with non-tax sources contributing the most. Non-tax revenues, which mainly include ministries' revenues in administrative fees and royalties, accounted for 54 percent of total domestic revenues, up from 45 percent in 2021.
The World Bank also notes that the increase in the price and export of coal also contributed to the increase in the revenues of the ministries.
 
Increase in exports
According to the World Bank report, Afghanistan has exported goods worth 1.7 billion dollars between January and November 2022, while Afghanistan's exports for the entire year of 2021 and 2020 were 0.9 billion and 0.8 billion US dollars, respectively.
Data released by Afghanistan customs authorities show that Pakistan (65 percent) and India (20 percent) are the two main export destinations.
According to this report, the main exports of Afghanistan include vegetable products (56%), mineral products (28%) and textiles (10%), which together comprise 94% of the total exports.
 
The amount of imports
The data from January to June 2022 shows that Afghanistan imported 2.9 billion dollars’ worth of goods. Of the total imports, the countries of Iran (23%), Pakistan (16%) and China (14%) were the main sources of imports. The main imports include mineral products (24%), vegetable products (20%) and textiles (9%), which together comprise 54% of the total imports.
Meanwhile, after the publication of the World Bank report, Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesman of the Islamic Emirate, described it as "economic progress" and compared its indicators with the performance of the previous government.
He wrote in a tweet: "The new report of the World Bank shows that in the last 9 months of 2022, Afghanistan's exports have grown by 1 billion and 700 million dollars. This is despite the fact that during twenty years of occupation, with many efforts and facilities, the export of Afghanistan under the administration of Kabul did not exceed 800 million.