Afghanistan’s money, called the afghani, has gone up by an impressive 9% in the past few months, and this makes it one of the best-performing currencies worldwide. There are a few reasons for this increase, including getting a lot of humanitarian help and doing more trade with nearby Asian countries.
The government in charge for the last two years has done things to help the afghani do better, like telling people not to use US dollars and Pakistani rupees for local buying and making it harder to send foreign money out of the country.
Even though these steps have been taken, Afghanistan still has some big problems with its economy, society, and politics, which could make it hard for the afghani to stay strong for a long time. The experts think that this rise in the currency is only for the short term, mainly because of the strict rules on using foreign money.
On the other hand, Pakistan’s money, the rupee, has been losing value and is now 22% less valuable than it was at the start of this year, even though it got a bit better recently. In Afghanistan, people mainly use money changers for foreign money, and the Sarai Shahzada market in Kabul is a really important place for this.
People send money into Afghanistan through something called the Hawala system because the country has money problems and depends on informal ways of handling money. Even though the demand for the afghani has gone up because of strict rules on foreign money and more trade, the experts think it will stay at the same level for the rest of the year.
Afghanistan’s central bank has changed the rules on how much money people can take out, so businesses and regular people can take out more dollars. But even though the afghani is doing better lately, there are still a lot of problems in the country, like not enough jobs, things being too expensive, and prices going down, according to the World Bank.
