Afghanistan dispatches: ‘85% of factories are now closed and more will be shut down soon’ Dispatches
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Afghanistan dispatches: ‘85% of factories are now closed and more will be shut down soon’

JURIST EXCLUSIVE – Law students and lawyers in Afghanistan are filing reports with JURIST on the situation there after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban. Here, a lawyer in Kabul offers his observations and perspective on factory closures in the country since the Taliban took power and the economic implications of that. For privacy and security reasons we are withholding our correspondent’s name and institutional affiliation. The text has been only lightly edited to respect the author’s voice.

More than 85% of Afghanistan’s factories have become inactive since the Taliban came into power in August this year. Most of these factories are located in provinces such as Balkh, Herat, Kandahar, and Kabul. Generally, there are more than 34 industrial parks all over the country, covering thousands of acres of government land and property.

Management of industrial parks is one of the major tasks that the Ministry of Industry and Commerce should conduct. Under the former goverment, a team of 10 people worked on a comprehensive Industrial Parks Policy that promoted legal reforms, lowering property prices, coordination with the central bank and commercial banks to speed up TT [telegraph transfers] for industrialists, and distribution of land for customers.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and a local media in Balkh province, 85% of factories are now closed and more will be shut down soon if the Taliban do not take the necessary measures. In a different statement, head of the Kandahar industrial parks has confirmed that there are 260 factories in this province, of which 240 are closed.

I believe the Taliban will not be able to do much in the near future to solve these issues. This is because the almost all of these industrial parks used to import their raw material from abroad and all the dealings were conducted in US dollars. Moreover, lack of foreign currency (especially US dollars) lack of raw material, and restrictions on electronic transfer of money by the central bank are other major challenges facing the industry sector in the Afghanistan at the moment.

These factories helped a lot of Afghans with employment and their closure has contributed to rising unemployment in the country.