A Conversation With Ajmal Ahmady, Afghanistan’s Former Central Bank Chief

normal basis. And then fast forward just seven days or so, we're recording this on August, everything has changed. I think it was last Saturday or last Sunday. I'm sort of losing track of the days. There was clearly a very rapid advance of the Taliban, but then there was some questions like, oh, how many days or weeks will there be a pressure on Cobbo, And then it seemed to

happen in basically an instance. So clearly there are a lot of questions swirling around the situation in Afghanistan right now. But given that this is all thoughts, we're going to focus on one question in particular, which is what exactly happens to the Afghani economy, and we have the perfect person to talk about it. We're going to be speaking with Ajmal Ahmadi, who has been the central Banker in Afghanistan since the middle of last year. Before that, he

was the Minister of Commerce and Industry. He has left the country under very very chaotic circumstances, but he's been very gracious in his time and agreed to come on odd lots. So Jemal, thank you so much for joining

the show. Thank you very much for happening. So, I guess my first question asked to be what was your experience like of actually getting out of the country, Because the scenes that we saw in capital over the weekend, people desperately trying to get to the airport and leave on a very limited number of planes were very very upsetting, um and and disturbing and memorable as well. So how did you manage to get out? Well? Thank thank you

again for having me. On the day of the fall, which was last Sunday, I was in my office um conducting work. Obviously, the situation was rapidly deteriorating, and so as new information came in, we found out that Pulcha heat prisoned, which is just slightly west of Cobble had fallen, and that the reports that til then had entered the city. At that point, I decided to go for the airport. UM. I didn't have a ticket for that day, but I thought it perhaps would be the safest place to go

to be, and so we we drove there. UM. The airport road, which which now you can see on CNN was was crowded, but yet had not become as chaotic as you've seen now. We were able to make it in and UM. What I attempted to do was trying to find a ticket for that evening, and I was able to secure a ticket for that evening on a flight which subsequently was canceled. It's plane that you see on the tarmac. Everyone was trying to scramble upon we

went on that flight. UM, but I think around four pm we received the notice that the president himself had already left. And at that point I think I kind of instinctively knew that chaos would would would begin at that point, so everyone tried to fight on the plane. I gone on the plane for a little while but realized it wasn't leaving. UM at which point when on the tarmac and there are already hundreds of people there.

It was. It was a bit of a surreal scene where helicopters were taking off, a mill terry plane was taking off. I think anyone who had access to any type of aircraft were just scrambling to jump on a plane. There was one military plane not from the US, from a third country, and people were scrambling to to get on board. That is it was. I think I believe it's called a C seven team where the back comes down and up, and that was going up. And my

friends helped me push me on that plane. Uh, And they were evacuating their own embassy staff, So I was not supposed to be on that plane, but I think they felt that they probably believe that I was embassy staff, and they let me on that plane. And I'm very fortunate to get out. Wow. Incredible. You know, you you've been tweeting these pretty these threads about the sort of the situation right now and including the last several days,

given the intensity of the moment and the chaos in general. Uh, there's you know, they're incredibly lucid and clear and helpful. Can you talk about those few days earlier? Look, what was your expectation you're running the central bank, and we'll get into what management of the central bank looks like. But obviously it was sort of a split second decision. It sounds like to actually get to the airport and leave.

Where was your head at say three or four days earlier, as you're thinking about, Okay, there's this rapid advance of the Taliban, but your job is to keep the banking system running. I think I'm still trying to run the bank in a normal, everyday fashion while trying to mitigate risks.

So it was Thursday that a number of important, very important provincial centers fell, including Kandahar, Herat Umlus maybe Logo fell on the same day, and at that point I called some people I don't want to name, but I called some people in to have some discussions as to what our plans should be. And I think one we

worried about our staff. We have had some staff killed in loc Are, so worried about what we do with staff, if we need to bring them into the capital, if the banks and the Central Bank would continue to operate in telign health areas. I think secondly, yeah, so I think the second was the in terms of operations what will we do? Uh? And then third sort of risk mitigation at the center. So as we saw the situation deteriorate, else did we need to think about it do to

take care of staff operations and contingency plans? So would the central bank operate or continue operating in Taliban controlled areas? Or I guess maybe it would be good if you talked a little bit about what the central bank does in a normal situation versus what ended up happening over the past a couple of months or so. Sure, so the central bank is I think, as in any country, the core mandate here is inflation to make sure that inflation doesn't rise. And we provide a banking services to

two commercial banks. So I'd say those are the key operations that in a day to day environment typically move forward. And during the last week or last month even we began to focus more on provincial activities. We have provincial activities to a bank branch, central bank branch, and every single province of Afghanistan. And you know, we we came up with a color coded map where we would see

the risk to a certain province. We would rate it based on risks and then you know, in terms of cash management, bringing cash in from the province or sending it out, we would we would manage it based on the risk seen in that province. Um if a province was expected to fall, we would try to bring in all the cash to the center. I think here we were worried about dollars because we get supplied internationally and so that was a key concern of our international partners.

So a place where the talentman came close to make sure that we withdrew dollars and try to repatriate most of the Afghanians as well. In terms of the banking sector, the decision we came to was that we did not allow banks so you utilize dollars in the provinces where Taliban were operating. But we left it up to the banks themselves whether they wanted to operate using Afghanis based

on their own risk plans and contingency plants. Can you just describe a little bit about what the how the currencies are used, So obviously the dollar is important, to what degree is activity dollarized? What is the role of the Afghani the currency and what degree? To what degree did you see your job is to achieve the inflation goals by maintaining a stable relationship between the two mm hmm.

So Afghanistan is a heavily dollarized economy, about se maybe six the five of all deposits are maintained in dollars samply. We run a very large current account deficit, which means that we have to be supplied with dollars from our own national partners, and so the dollar plays a very important role UM in the Afghan context. The Afghani is utilized on a day to day basis for for most transactions, and there's a significant pass through inflation where we have

an inflation targeting mandate. But I think the key thing, although we don't target a specific currency rate, is that we worry about the currency because there's a high inflation passed through. So during this period, we were even as provinces were falling, we were able to maintain Afghan year around between seventy eight one to the dollar, which which was a success in might view UM and inflation remained within the single digits. Yeah. I think during your tenure

most people recognize your success on that front. So single digit inflation and also effects appreciation of only about five percent or so UM, which is pretty amazing in the context of the situation. Now, now you mentioned the current account deficit, and here I kind of have to ask, maybe a sensitive question, but what role does opium play

in the economy? Because I cannot imagine that drug proceeds show up as exports in the current account, and yet most people would say that they are an important, although not necessarily desirable part of the economy. So I think they finance a portion of the current account deficit. Um. If you take a look at opium um, I think I believe the US The recent UNODC reports states for this are about two hundred thousand hectors of opium being produced.

Each hector produces about twenty sevens and the prices about two hundreds. When multiply all this together, it ends up being roughly about a billion dollars in farm gate receipts. And when you take a look at our current account deficit, the current account deficit x AID because it is including it, but x AD, so the trade deficit we can say is roughly around six billion dollars seven billion dollars. Of the seven billion dollars we auction off or provide liliquity,

around two and a half billion or three billions. So there is a significant part of the current account deficit which is also being financed through other means, but there's obviously a portion that's probably being financed through opium receipts,

although we don't have formal data on receipts. Now. One thing I'm interested in in terms of your perspective at the Central Bank is, I know Afghanistan is not a heavily banked country and the sort of does it Actually was reading a Bloomberg article today about you know, there's the informal money changers and that is a big part of how people do day to day finance, not through a formal banking system. To what degree does that complicate

the job of the central bank. That's so much activity or day to day activity is just not through the sort of traditional regulated identities. So what we call them sarah fas. Sara fas play a large role in terms of um even even accepting deposit services for individual Afghans or transferring money. They've been They've been it forever and so they were able to operate and money even now. If someone if I wanted to send money to a certain province, I would call a Sarafan and he would

be able to send that money immediately there. So they do play a key role. I think over the past year, what we tried to do was corporate tize them so they had individual licenses. We went through this process where we provide them corporate licenses so they could be more normally regulated. They protect proticting what we have a dollar option, so we provide liquidity to the market and they a very important role in terms of money transfers throughout the country.

And I think the reason is is what we're seeing today is the financial inclusion or banking coverages around twelve percent in Afghanistan, and so of people realize informal money exchangers to be able to send money throughout the country. I'd make one last point here is that the Central Bank actually made significant progress and you wouldn't believe it.

In Afghanistan. We digitalized all the payment streams, so we connected all the banks, all of the telecom companies to the central Bank, and we launched just this last month a new service through which a person could send money using a short code start two four six and you could check your balance and you could send money anywhere in Afghanistan, and we were expecting to create a bank account for everyone in Afghanistan through that mechanism. Of course,

um I didn't move forward. What's your impression of how the Taliban has been financing itself. So there's obviously a lot of speculation about illegal activities UM, such as opium money, UM, possibly donations from entities abroad. But I think a lot of people don't necessarily appreciate that the Taliban was already extorting a lot of money from people in the provinces,

basically a form of taxation. I think there was a u N report from last year that said the Taliban was collecting as much as one point five billion dollars, which is something like a quarter of the official budget of Afghanistan. But I'd be curious to get your views on this. Where was the money actually coming from. I think you could say from from a few different sources. One is through opium receipts, so they would tax opium production to the farmers and receive a certain amount of tax,

and I think that was quite well known. I think secondly, in the mining sector, there's significant areas that were controlled by the Taliban and they were able to tax mining production as well. A third, it was relatively well known, but even transport or transit through Afghanistan was being taxed by the Taliban. Typically a trucker would come, they pay at the customs facility, and then especially at the last year's situation deteriorated Taliban checkpoint and they would pay them.

I can't remember the exact amount, but it was actually well known, maybe thirty thousand apps per truck to go through. And so they were they were taxing people um even prior to this past week, and then of course the international donations that flowed to them as well. I'm actually cure is about official taxation, infrastructure, and of course efficacy of taxing. Of taxation is something that varies pretty greatly

across the country to what or across countries. Can you talk through a little bit about how the government of Afghanistan pre Taliban engaged in tax collection and how tax revenues matched up with revenue goals we collected if I remember correctly, roughly our target crisis was roughly around two billion apps, so let's call that about two point seven

billion dollars of domestic generation and UM. Most of the revenue would come from either tax receipts, so businessmen and individuals who are taxed or through customs, and so I believe the split was perhaps, you know, maybe let's say forty taxes customs and then other one type revenues as well. So why don't we forward a little bit too, um, current or recent events, because I have so many questions about what has been going on and how you see

things unfolding in the future. Um. But you know, Joe asked you about the importance of dollarization in the economy, and one of the things that you wrote on Twitter was that on Friday August you had received a call saying that Afghanistan wouldn't be receiving dollarshipments due from the I m F. So I guess I'm curious. You know who made the call, what was their reasoning, what was your response, and how big a deal was that? From

your perspective, it was a very very big deal. So, as I mentioned on Thursday, a number of provincial capital still and I thought that was a bad situation, and that on Friday morning we received a call that an expected shipment which was which was due to arrive on Sunday, it would be canceled at this stage, we're still thinking even medium term. We're not thinking that the government will fall on Sunday. And so I met with some people and we thought through various strategies of how we would

deal with the situation without dollar influence. Remember that we have a very large amount of international reserves, the nine billion that I've stated, and so by any typical metric, that's a large amount. So when you look at import coverage ratio, it's more than fourteen months. If you take a look at, you know, percentage of external debt, it's it's a very large amount. So we had the sufficient resources, but again we were depending on physical shipments to arrive

so that we can supply the market. So with without that shipment, it was quite surprising. I was taken aback that it was a one off decision, or it wasn't even a process through which they said they would send less. It was just a complete stoppage, which was very worry and so we thought through various scenarios. How could we manage this, what would we be doing, How could we go through the next week without with the amount of dollars we had. So we ran through various scenarios. But

I think at the end. Our international partners had good intelligence because they know the shipment was planning come on Sunday and they said, no, that's when couples fell. Can you explain further why is why we're physical shipments so important as opposed to I mean you talk about okay, you had improved the digitization of the banking system during your tenure. Why are physical dollars such an important aspect

of bank management? And also do you have any idea who who actually made that call to say Okay, no, no, no dollars shipments this weekend? I do, I'd rather not say just to not cause any UM looks say political issue use on either end. UM, but I think that the reason that they're so vital again is because we're importing economy and so we get all of this coming in through UM. We have a large current up deficits, so we need cash going out and UM A significant

portion of that was cash based transaction. It wasn't all based on digital payments or providing for LC's to another country UM, and I think that was something that we began to develop, but we were still reliant on the physical fund as well. So given that the Taliban remains on international sanctions lists. It seems very, very unlikely that the I m F is going to resume those dollar shipments.

And I think most people are talking about a scenario where Afghanistan is basically cut off from dollar funding or placed on additional sanctions lists, things like that, And I guess I'm curious, how do you feel about economic tools such as sanctions being used against the regime. I mean, the classic criticism of sanctions is that they end up hurting the wider population while not necessarily doing very much to actually impact the ruling class or elite, who are

still able to extort money in various ways. So do you think sanctions or withholding the reserves is going to be effective against the Taliban? And are they ethical in the current situation. It's a tough question either way. I think both are correct. In the one hand, they do limit the resources to a government. On the other hand,

they do hurt so I think both are right. On the one hand, you know, there's nine billion dollars in international reserves and I outlined where they are, and you know in treasuries and gold and other assets that you would have spect And I think I think given the current environment where I think the US has expressed many times that they would have preferred to negotiated, negotiated settlement, and um, they're worried about women's rights and free me

and a number of other aspects of governance from the Taliban. I think it would be tough for, for example, the Treasury to say, you know, here's nine billion dollars. And I think that would just raise a lot of questions from Congress, from DA from human rights groups, so that there would be they replaced in a difficult situation, I would expect. I'm not in that side, but that would be my reading of the situation. But yes, on the

other hand, not providing dollars will cause significant economic partnership. Um, and we've seen that in other countries where sanctions have been applicked. You one of your tweets, you know again, it sort of had this, Uh, some of your tweets have a very dry humor about them. But you said that certain Taliban members have been asking about the location of the reserves, and your comment was they need to

hire an economist. And so which does raise the question of what options do they does the does the Taliban have and what would an economist tell them? And you know, okay, presuming as you surmise, there's not going to be that nine billion dollars unlocked. I think you said maybe they only have actual access to maybe point one or point

two percent of the total reserve, so virtually none. What do you expect to happen and what would be I guess sound economic management under the under those extreme conditions, I think the impact if access isn't received, it's going from you know, reserves of a country which has nine billion dollars in reserves and sixteen months in port ratio to a situation where they have a few million dollars and two days or converagration. And so that's obviously a

very different situation. The dollars can't be supplied, the banks can provide receipts to their customers and asks. Obviously the flow of apps is going to increase, the bid or demanders is going to increase, and so we're likely going to see the depreciation of the currency over a time period,

probably a spike and then a continued depreciation. Again, because Afghanistan has very large current account deficit, the inflation passed through is quite high, so you're gonna see that knock on effect on on all goods, the price of all goods going being increased, and I think physics, I think we started this on Saturday, we introduce some limits on the monet withdrawals, but I think they're going to have to bring those limits significantly lower um and so again

that's going to cause the situation where you were already facing a triple shock, You're you're gonna you're gonna create much more economic hardships. Remember Afghanistan, Most countries around the world, they're facing a challenging to deal with COVID, but Afghanistan, we had a regional drought that wasn't very much talked about, but that's significantly impact. And we had internally displaced people

just because of the drought. Then we had the conflict and the fighting, and now add on top of it, what what what potentially could be a economic type of crisis. So it's a really challenging situation. We were trying to manage three shocks, and now I think they're gonna have to do with the fourth, which is challenging. So what could they potentially do in that scenario. I think the the response is, you know, just taking a typical macro

response is one. The revenues have significantly declined, um so, so again it's the stuff that's come down, but also the flows, right, the donor influence with significant decline, and so you're gonna have to scale back you're spending significantly, so donor programs or social spending or those three thousand military that were there, teachers that were there, That civil service is going to have to come down, and of course again that's going to cause hardship in such a climate.

I think secondly, uh, they're gonna have to put some level of capital controls or limits on on withdrawals from the banking sector. They're gonna have to find additional revenue sources or wherever that maybe they'll probably try to go out to other countries to replace the US and maybe China, Pakistan or other regional countries to find some sources of finance.

But it's a tough situation. If people think that getting everyone out of the airport is going to resolve this, I think the economic impact and human impact is going to continue for a long time. So Joe actually touched on this when he mentioned your tweet where you said maybe the Taliban needs to get an economist. But what's your impression of their understanding or views of finance and how the economy works and what role something like a central bank should play in it, and do their views

differ from I guess traditional conceptions of monetary policy. Well, you know, I think that's one of the things that was never um pushed by anyone, which is they simply always had one response, which is we want Islamic formal governance. But they never once talked about what their their social policy will be, what their economic policy, their macroeconomic stances, those types of questions were never asked and never considered, and so it's really difficult to know what their response

will be. UM. I can say that in the provinces where they took over, as they were taking over certain provinces, that they went to some banks and said, you know, stop paying interest, stop lending or obtaining interests. So I think that portion would be probably implemented, probably one aspect financial policy. But beyond that, I'm I've never heard of,

you know, many economists on their team. I'm sure they can identify it, or they have foreign backers, and I'm sure they will introduce them to some but anyone you put in that position is going to be facing circumstances. Could you see yourself ever going back to Afghanistan? There is the president who fled, had said and he's reported to be in the U a E. Or I think he said he's in the UA that he would like to return at some point. Could you see yourself if

you were to return going back? Or are you done? I have now spent um eight years working for the government of Afghanistan, seven years in this term, and I worked in Ministry of Finance back in two thousand four and five. Oh I was the Economic Advisor, I was Ministry of Industry and Commerce and now Central Bank governor. And I think in any scenario, m eight years of

government services a long time. Given this change, I can't see myself, not only for the Taliban themselves, but you know, when you implement reforms in a number of these places we talked about Saraf or other people. I made a lot of enemies, and to be honest, during a transition phase, one fears what is the Taliban's view going to be of me? The other fear is uh, you know, during a chaotic transition period, someone just says, hey, this person did X, Y and Z and you know, who's gonna

who's gonna follow up and see if it's true. At that stage, they'll just take a decision, and so um I think not. I'll tell you it's heartbreaking, not only for me, but for so many people. In two thousand fifteen, when we came there's a new government. There were so many people, young people who were coming back to Afghanistan, who were implementing reforms, who were spending days and nights as you would expect civil servants anywhere, and people who

were giving their heart to to implement reforms. And what we're all heartbroken. I mean, that's it's the human impact. It's just you know, I have women employees that worked for me and now they're just saying, you know, what what are we doing? You know, because they were going to school, they were they were working. Uh, the environment is you know, quite normal. And then in a span of a few days, and you can't imagine how quickly this this transpired. I mean, it was that quick. I

was fortunate to make it, but most were not. And so now they're they're living in this environment where there's a lot of here. Again, right now the world's attention is on Afghanistan. Again, but in two months, it probably won't be what's going to happen and whether it bre be repercussions for actions they take at that time. And I don't think anyone's convinced. So this is something that I actually wanted to ask you. So the Taliban has been on something of a pr offensive and they're suggesting

that they've changed or evolved over the years. What's your impression of that strategy, and more importantly, should the international community believe them? I always say I view people's actions, not their words. And the Taliban have been involved in a negotiation process which excluded the government of Afghan and I think most people that you will talk to have are very upset at the Afghan government, but also the US government in particular how Isa who negotiated this flawed deal.

And under that flawed deal, it was clearly stipulated that the Taliban had to make subsessions. One was an interrafting process where they would negotiate. One was disengaging from al Qaida, and I think most intelligence analysts were reports. I think the UN even came out with the report that said, no, they hadn't disassociated themselves with al Qaida. They didn't go

through a negotiation process. It was a complete force. So they you know, they put on a good show in Doha, and that gave them international legitimacy where they could hold press confidences and go on foreign trips. But they fought to take over. And so they say one thing there and they do another thing here, and everyone knew that. And I think I would love it if they held onto their commitments and there was no reprisal attacks, and they allowed women to go to school, and all of

these things that they're saying now are upheld. Do I believe it right now? Absolutely not? Are you? I mean, I'm sure you know, just going back to you know, what your life was like two weeks ago or even a week a half, a week and a half ago. Now, like I'm sure you were having conversations with the I, M, f U, S, Treasury, etcetera. Are you still engaged with them in any capacity. Is this still a conversation that

you're having or is that those connections basically gone. They reach out for me, both both on a personal and professional level, personal level just to ask how I'm doing. And you know what one person from a certain international agency was was very helpful to me. You know, I remember at that airport I was texting him and saying, well, what should i'd be doing? Right? Can you putting me in contact with someone? As you're hearing about on other

media outlets people are doing it. That was me trying to contact. So it's on a personal level, some people were very supportive and helpful, and I'm always thankful for that. On a professional level, I try to provide information and feedback and context where if the question comes up, um, but put in a formal capacity are I mean, we've been talking about how quickly the situation seemed to change

from one week to the next. Really and despite the very fast takeover by the Taliban there there are some signs of resistance brewing. So I'd be curious to get your views on what exactly are the chances that the Northern Alliance will be able to effectively counter the Taliban. Well, there are reports that the vice President Sale did not leave the country and ease in count These were massoud Son. They're both there, um, and they've made various statements to

that effect. They were there until you know, I think most people know the story of how my sup was killed on September nine, two eleven, and kept eleventh happened, So you know they've they've been resisting the Taliban from prior to the one invasions, so it is likely to continue. Um, it will be a tough struggle if they do decide to take that route. I mean your comment about the women who are working previously under you at the Central Bank and then now obviously they have no idea what's

going to happen. How difficult I guess I would say national administration of I think there have been reports of the Taliban telling civil servants please come back to work. We're going to try and keep keep things going. But obviously, you know, continuation of any sort of normal operations would seem to be extraordinarily difficult. How hard will that be?

And it's sort of a cliche, and I say, there's only you know as someone who um very ill informed Western observer, but there's this sort of like cliche about you know, this sort of how difficult it is to form a concept of nationhood in Afghanistan. So you know, prior to the two thousand one invasion, the Taliban had only been in power I think for five years. How hard will it be for them to run something that resembles an operating government. I think it's going to be challenging,

and many people have made that commented until now. They even in during that five year rule prior to two thousand one and now, um, you know what we would think of as typical governance or central think policy making, social support or services provision, I don't think we saw much of that or not a high level. And so they're gonna face because face challenges because Afghanistan has changed significantly,

especially in urban areas. I think you know, the percentage living in urban areas is now about it's been twenty years people have gone the university, so that there I think they will fail leges when there's already been one or two protests starting in Jalelabad and another in Cobble on Flag Day where they try to repress people from not putting up the Afghan flags. And so you know it's going to depend on how they decide to repress or enforce their own beliefs on people who it's as

alien to them as it would be to you. And so how do they manage that? Do they allow do they do they enforce their interpretation as they did prior to two thousand one. Are they more lenient. They're making comments to that effect, but will they implement it and will that be sustained? And then the second part is on that the economic side. So until now they're living in this environment where you know, for multiple years they've

been fighting and now they've taken over. Well, now that you've taken over, listen, your reserves have been frozen, donors have frozen U out, What is your physical policy, what is your monetary policy? How will you be providing services? And very quickly they're going to have to face these realities, which I'm not sure they are have considered or are helpful. I have I have one more sort of e con

related question and sort of the one. The one other factor that we haven't discussed but there's been a lot of discussion about it is the potential relationship between China and the Taliban. And of course it's well known that there's sort of an extraordinary amount of UH minerals and other natural resources in Afghanistan, including lithium, which is going to be increasingly important. How do you see that relationship going forward, the China Taliban relationship. Will they be able

to find some sort of potentially mutually agreeable relationship. Perhaps the benefits China from a trade or a material standpoint, Perhaps that solved some of the Taliban's cash problems. What are you watching for there? So China has a very close um they call it an all weather relationship with Pakistan, and obviously Pakistan supports the Taliban, so in that sense they have in you for building an engagement with them.

But China's foreign policy tends to be very conservative, especially in a place like Afghanistan, and They've made many overtures and started some processes for investment in Afghanistan, but I've never really followed through or short a willingness to execute on. So one example is the Ana copper mind the contract of which I can believe was signed in two thousand eight. There's a um An oil contract or investment in northern Afghanistan. Um there's an oil based in northern which was by

CNPC number of years ago. Both of those have lacked, and I think there were problems in Afghanistan. But I think it's a carrot that's always shown, but I'm not exactly sure if it's it'll actually be utilized. So this carrot of potential investments in Afghanistan. You know, I just given the environment, it might be on the agenda over fifty year horizon, not in a one to five year horizon. They're going to wait and see. That's that would be

my expectation. And then secondly, in terms of foreign aid, also that's typically not a component of China's foreign policy, so you don't see them providing such as USA does in countries around the world, and so I wouldn't expect them to see that. They always wanted a low footprint of their staff and visibility of their interests, so I wouldn't expect that to also be um something that they engage in. I think they will be held out as a potential opportunity, but not for the exit you did.

And so I think in that sense, notwithstanding this close friendship or engagement between all the parties involved, I wouldn't expect anyone to be able to replace the financial contributions of you know, the US, EU, I, m F, World Bank. If that doesn't get solved, then you can't replace it with a China or another country. Is there anything that you would like to say to the international community, so you know, all thoughts, we know that we do have

some policymakers who occasionally listen. I imagine there's going to be a lot of interest in this episode. Is there a particular message that you would like to get out to people like them and the broader world. I would say Afghans are very disappointed right now. And let me say in two areas. One is again, this deal without the Afghan government, which created the frameworks for them to

be legitimized and come back, was the wrong approach. It would have been better for the US to simply have left and said we are no longer here and we are removing our troops. But instead there was an agreement that was pursued and signed in which they discredited the Afghan government, which they came and forced the Afghan government to release five thousand prisoners, some of which who were talibans, some of which were murders, some of who of which

were major drug dealers. And when m HM the administration in Afghanistan refused, it was said, we would draw one billion in aid to Afghanistan. So imagine a government trying to defend itself and an international international partners coming to you and saying released five thousand prisoners from Washington, d C. Prisons, their murders, their drug dealers, removed them, and then we're going to sign a treat with the people who are backing them. It would have been better simply for the

US to have left. So I think that part is an aspect which I would ask people to consider and say, you know, was that necessary? Could we have it would have been better to have left without it. That's you know, it even contributed to the loss of moral and most the dices because everyone believed that there was a secret deal for to bring the talent and back in power, and so that VI would you fight? I think that's

one aspect of it. And secondly, more immediately is to again consider the humanity you know, of people in Afghanistan. You know, it doesn't the two things can be separate. Whichever way you decide to leave or disengage from Afghanistan, you know, consider the humanity of the people who are there, who are have to face these circumstances. Is who have to face these economic challenges, the personal lives, the uncertainty.

And I think perhaps what we're seeing on TV right now, what we're seeing on airport road is just an indication that perhaps this could have been done in a better way. Ash, well, I'm very conscious of the time and that you have a lot to be doing at the moment. So um, I think we'll leave it there, and thank you so much for coming on all thoughts Uh, we both really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Tas I appreciate it as well. Thank you for having me. Thank you. That

was fantastic. So Joe, I can't possibly say that I enjoyed that conversation, although I did find it interesting, absolutely heartbreaking to consider the situation that Afghanistan now finds itself in One thing I will say is it was very interesting to compare and contrast the current situation with what Afghanistan looked like just a few months ago. From a monetary policy perspective, so Asmal mentioned that they had had

success with the digitalization program. Inflation was relatively low in the single digits, the currency was relatively stable, a little bit of depreciation but nothing major. And again, all of that in the context of COVID and in many ways, I think a lot of people in the West are always going to view Afghanistan as something of a troubled country. But if you think over the past year, you know, in many ways there had been progress, efforts were being made,

and now we're seeing many of them I've done. Yeah. I had the comment that he made about the women employees at the Central Bank reaching out to him and saying like what now or you know what, and that it like drives home like like this sort of like

unimaginable speed and change of society. And so one day you're a sort of you're a professional working at a modern central bank, engaged in something that sort of is like recognizably modern finance throughout the world, and the next day you're like you don't even know like whether it's safe to go to work or whether you have a job. And what it's kind of it's the speed of change. I mean, it's thinking about it from the perspective of unemployee,

that situation I think is basically unimaginable to us. Absolutely. All Right, well, um, I guess we should leave it there. Yeah, let's leave it there. Okay. This has been another episode of the All Thoughts podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me on Twitter at Tracy Alloway, and I'm Joey Isn't. You can follow me on Twitter at the Stalwart and our guest asmal Ahmadi. He's on Twitter. He's at a Ahmadi. Follow our producer Laura Carlson, She's at Laura M. Carlson.

Followed the Bloomberg head of podcast Francesca Levi at Francesca Today. And check out all of our podcasts at Bloomberg onto the handle at podcasts. Thanks for listening.