33b new banknotes to replace old ones distributed so far: DAB

KABUL (Pajhwok): Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) on Tuesday said the afghani gained two percent value against the US dollar and that the process of distributing new banknotes has been started through different banks.

As part of the government accountability process, Nisar Ahmad Yousufzai, DAB Monitoring Department head, said the afghani gained two percent value against the dollar in the just recently concluded fiscal year.

He said compared to the currencies of other nations, neighbouring countries and international trading partners, the afghani was stable and did not depreciate.

He said the use of Afghan currency in the eastern and southern zones of the country had improved to 94 percent from the previous 14 percent after a successful campaign of encouraging masses to use local currency instead of foreign currency.

He said DAB assets surged to $13 billion with an increase of 4.5 percent this year, compared to the last year.

Yousufzai said during coronavirus pandemic, the use of ATM and online services increased and around one million of ATM cards were distributed.

Mir Aziz Bara, another senior central bank official, said the printing contract of 10 million banknotes of 10, 20, 50 afghanis had been signed with Poland and its first shipment reached Kabul last week.

He said 33 billion new banknotes had so far been distributed through banks to the markets while old banknotes of 58 billion collected in the outgoing solar year.

Cap. Abdul MaroofSikandari, acting head of Aryana Afghan Airlines, said the national flag career collected $4.3 million revenue in the outgoing solar year.

He said the airlines conducted 1,317 foreign flights carrying 114,437 passengers and 1,014 domestic flights carrying 74,047 passengers this year so far.

Nh/ma