From July 2021 to June 2022, Afghanistan had a $79 million trade surplus with Pakistan, one of its main trading partners, according to the most recent report by SIGAR, an official US monitoring organisation.
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) office produced a report for the US Congress in which it was observed that the Afghani, the country’s currency, increased by 11.6% against the Pakistani rupee.
The agency reported that despite political and economic difficulties, the Afghani currency appreciated by 6.1 percent versus the euro and 0.2 percent against the Indian rupee this quarter.
However, according to data released by Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB), the Afghani lost 0.6 percent of its value versus the US dollar and 1.9 percent against the Chinese yuan between the end of June and mid-September.
According to SIGAR, who cited the most recent trade data compiled by the World Bank, this year, food products, pharmaceuticals, and wood were Afghanistan’s top imports from Pakistan.
However, as Pakistanis looked for new fuel sources, increased oil prices on the global market favoured Afghanistan in bilateral commerce.
According to the SIGAR research, Afghanistan exports around 10,000 tonnes of coal to Pakistan every day, demonstrating how the Taliban government in Afghanistan is profiting from higher oil prices.
According to the study, “the Taliban increased coal prices between June and July 2022 in an effort to increase money from its mining sector amid growing coal exports to Pakistan.”
However, the US monitoring organisation stated that the Taliban’s diplomatic isolation persisted because, as of today, no nation has formally recognised the Taliban rule as the government of Afghanistan, following the group’s takeover of the nation in August of last year.
However, a number of nations, including Turkmenistan, China, Pakistan, and Russia, have let Taliban-appointed ambassadors to remain in Afghan embassies in their capital cities.
US officials have continued to communicate with Taliban leaders on a wide variety of matters and closely monitor Taliban behaviour in a number of locations, SIGAR observed. However, the United States has not officially recognised the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.
According to the report, the United States has continued to be Afghanistan’s greatest contributor, having given the country more than $1.1 billion since the Taliban took control.
The research indicated that US expenses for the 20-year war in Afghanistan were more than double those provided by the Pentagon, citing data gathered by the Watson Institute’s Costs of War Project at Brown University.
According to the Costs of War project 2001–2021, the Afghan war has cost the U.S. government $2.26 trillion compared to the Pentagon’s $933 billion.
The Watson analysis, in contrast to the Pentagon’s Cost of War Report, adds what it deems to be Afghanistan-specific expenditures of $433 billion over the Department of Defense’s baseline costs, veterans’ medical and disability costs of $296 billion, and interest charges on related borrowing of $530 billion.
