Washington (AFP)

The Taliban have promised to improve the Afghan economy but without access to international aid and reserves held abroad, the future of the country, one of the poorest in the world, looks complex.

Some countries have already announced a freeze on their support.

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank remain silent, but may have to suspend their financial assistance to the country under pressure from the United States.

"Afghanistan is cruelly dependent on foreign aid," said Vanda Felbab-Brown, an Afghanistan specialist at the Brookings Institution, noting that the amount of aid is at least "10 times greater" than the income of the Taliban.

In 2020, aid flows accounted for 42.9% of Afghanistan's Gross Domestic Product which amounted to $ 19.81 billion, according to World Bank data which notes that Afghanistan's economy "is on the decline. characterized by its fragility and its dependence on "international aid."

The Taliban's current income is estimated at between $ 300 million and over $ 1.5 billion per year, according to a report by the United Nations Security Council's Sanctions Committee, published in May 2020.

- Opium and taxes -

The Taliban mainly derive their income from criminal activities, such as the cultivation of poppies from which opium and then heroin are obtained, and therefore from drug trafficking;

but also the extortion of local businesses and ransoms obtained after kidnappings.

“A good part of their income also comes from the collection of taxes,” explains Charles Kupchan, an expert at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), pointing out that they have become experts in the matter by taxing just about everything in the territories that 'they control, from government projects to commodities.

"Afghanistan will no longer be a country of opium cultivation", however assured Tuesday the spokesman of the Taliban.

According to him, production will be reduced "again to zero", in reference to the ban on poppy cultivation under their government until 2001.

Harvesting opium sap in a poppy field in Nangarhar province, May 10, 2020 NOORULLAH SHIRZADA AFP

For now, despite the billions of dollars spent by the international community to eradicate the poppy, Afghanistan produces more than 80% of the world's opium.

Hundreds of thousands of jobs depend on it in a country of 38 million people ravaged by unemployment after 40 years of conflict.

While the economic situation has deteriorated further with the pandemic, the Taliban themselves have recognized that the improvement of the economy could not be done without help from abroad.

"We have had exchanges with many countries. We want them to help us," said Zabihullah Mujahid while the majority of the country's reserves are held abroad, mainly in the United States.

The Taliban only have access to 0.1% or 0.2% of Afghanistan's total reserves, Afghan Central Bank (DAB) President Ajmal Ahmady, who has left the country, said on Wednesday, assuring that those - ci "have never been in danger".

The central bank's reserves were "approximately $ 9 billion last week. But that does not mean that the DAB physically held $ 9 billion in its safe," and so the money is not in the hands of the Taliban, he said in a series of tweets.

Assets, including cash and gold, are held, among other things, in accounts of the US Central Bank.

- Good posture?

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The Taliban seem to enjoy a less icy international reception than during their draconian regime of 1996-2001.

Russia, China and Turkey have already welcomed the insurgents' first public statements.

However, many donor countries, starting with the United States, remain on their guard.

Washington has insisted that it expects the Taliban to respect human rights, especially those of women.

As of Monday, Berlin had announced to suspend its development aid.

Germany, one of Afghanistan's ten largest donors, was due to provide aid of 430 million euros this year, including 250 million for development.

For Charles Kupchan of the CFR, the Taliban have "an interest" in putting on a good face if they want to obtain economic aid.

Especially since, he opines, China, the second largest economy in the world, should not financially replace Western countries.

"The Chinese are very mercantilist. They tend to be more interested in countries with a good trading environment, countries where they can build their new silk roads," he observes.

Afghans rely on remittances sent by family members living abroad.

But Western Union announced the suspension since Monday of transfers.

According to the World Bank, these transfers amounted to nearly 789 million dollars last year.

A vital windfall for the population.

© 2021 AFP