Preface

This report was prepared by the author when he was a Visiting Fellow at the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), Tokyo, and a former Economist at the South Asia Department of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Manila. The author appreciates the support provided by ADBI and ADB during his assignment in 2003 and the copyediting by Jens Wilkinson.

The last ADB economic report on Afghanistan was carried out in 1978 and there has been no systematic effort at collecting economic data since 1979. Therefore, the present report is based primarily on data and information collected after October 2001 up to the time of this assignment.

Further new information was added to the extent possible in the final draft of January 9, 2004 delivered to ADBi Publishing. The author used wide-ranging secondary information in order to seek comprehensiveness and is responsible for any misrepresentations of such information that may have occurred.

Assessment of the Afghan economy is constrained by a lack of reliable data and still underdeveloped statistical capacity. While the greatest efforts were made to include the latest data available from the Central Statistics Office, Ministry of Finance, Da Afghanistan Bank (the central bank) and key development partners, the review needs to be updated in the near future as the local statistical and analytical capacity develops.

Manubu Fujimura
Tokyo
January 2004