DAB officials: Inflation rate falls, afghani’s value increases

KABUL (Pajhwok): Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) officials on Wednesday said the Afghan currency’s value against the US dollar increased by 4.4 percent this year compared to the same period last year and inflation rate also fell.

DAB head Mullah Hidayatullah Badri told reporters at the "Government Accountability to the Nation program" in Kabul that the central bank had been able to implement effective monetary policies and increase the value of the afghani against foreign currencies in the last 1401 solar year.

He said DAB relaxed restrictions on withdrawing money and now customers could withdraw more money than before from their accounts in commercial banks.

DAB’s Islamic Banking head Dr. Muhammad Yusuf Salim said now individual account holders of US dollars were paid 600 US dollars per week against previous 400 US dollars per week.

He said customers could withdraw 2000 dollars from their accounts now once a month while previously they would withdraw 1200 dollars.

He added individual local currency account holders could withdraw 50,000 afghanis per week instead of 30,000 afghanis. He added now customers could withdraw 200,000 afghanis in a month instead of 100,000 afghanis.

DAB monetary policy head Ahmad Jawad Sadad said the inflation rate fell to minus 2.8 percent in 1402 solar year while it was 4.15 percent in 1400 year according to latest figures of the National Statistics and Information Agency.

During the same period, he said, the value of the afghani against the dollar increased by 4.4 percent while in the year 1400, the value of the afghani against the dollar decreased by 10.4 percent.

According to reports, the central bank auctioned 978.5 million US dollars to maintain the value of the afghani.

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