Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan last year a significant quantity of US dollars have been flowing from Pakistan to Afghanistan and the scenario has been steadily eroding Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves, according to Malik Bostan Chairman of the Exchange Companies Association of Pakistan (ECAP).
Bostan remarked during a news conference that aside from dollar trafficking and phoney imports the government’s disregard for this issue has ruined the exchange rate.
Malik Bostan continued by saying that Pakistan has been in trouble as a result of the unrestricted flow of funds to Afghanistan. Because each individual is permitted to carry $1,000 per day and because 15,000 people travel to Afghanistan every day $15 million per day is legally moving from Pakistan to Afghanistan, according to Malik Bostan.
He said that more than Rs500,000 could not be kept in Kabul. He added that the Afghan government had ordered all Pakistani money to be converted into dollars or other foreign currencies two months ago.
Bostan said that in comparison to 3,000 containers during the same period last year almost 15,000 containers travelled from Pakistan to Afghanistan during the first quarter of the current financial year without being charged import duties.
