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Sept 21 (Reuters) - Afghanistan's Taliban governmentbolstered its economic team on Tuesday, naming a commerceminister and two deputies as the group tries to revive afinancial system in shock from the abrupt end to billions ofdollars in foreign aid.
Nooruddin Azizi, a businessman from Panjshir province northof Kabul, was named as acting minister of commerce and industryand would start work immediately, Taliban spokesman ZabihullahMujahid told a news conference.
Azizi joins the acting finance minister and minister foreconomic affairs, both of whom were announced previously, in ateam facing a daunting task.
Exacerbated by a drought that threatens to leave millions ofpeople hungry, the economic crisis is among the biggestchallenges facing the Taliban 20 years after they were drivenfrom power by a U.S.-led campaign in the wake of the Sept. 11attacks.
"We are working day and night on this and on making surethat the economic issue is resolved as soon as possible,"Mujahid told reporters.
He did not give concrete proposals as to how this could beachieved, but did promise that government workers who have beenunpaid since at least July would start receiving salaries soon.
Underlining the economic pressures building on Afghanistan'snew government, prices for staples like flour, fuel and ricehave risen and long queues are still forming outside banks asthey strictly ration withdrawals.
Some humanitarian aid has started to arrive and limitedtrade has returned across land borders with Pakistan, but asevere cash shortage is crippling day-to-day economic activityand decades of war have left much infrastructure in tatters.
Foreign aid payments, which accounted for 40% ofAfghanistan's gross domestic product, have all but stopped asthe West considers how to deal with a group that, until August,led a deadly insurgency against the U.S.-backed government.
Amruddin, a former member of the provincial council in thenorthern city of Kunduz, said farmers caught up in the warduring the harvest season and the dire state of some of thecountry's roads meant much of the produce had gone to waste.
"Kunduz is known as the bread basket of Afghanistan, but theeconomic situation, especially the agriculture situation inKunduz, is miserable," he said. "Farmers could not get productslike melon and grapes to Kabul due to all the problems."
BUSINESS DOWN
In the cities, normally bustling commercial areas areunusually quiet, and impromptu markets have sprung up wherepeople try to sell their household goods to raise cash.
Even before the Taliban seized Kabul on Aug. 15, 47% of thepopulation lived in poverty, according to the Asian DevelopmentBank, and a third survived on the equivalent of $1.90 a day.
While many people welcomed the end to 20 years of fightingbetween the Taliban and ousted Afghan forces supported byforeign troops, the economic crisis is causing the newgovernment increasing concern.
Afghanistan's central bank has been blocked from accessingmore than $9 billion in foreign reserves held outside thecountry, and Mujahid said millions of dollars belonging to thestate had disappeared before the Taliban entered the capital.
He said officials were making efforts to find out whathappened to the missing cash that he said had been taken out ofbanks before the government of President Ashraf Ghani collapsed.
Banks are limiting withdrawals to $200 or 20,000 afghani aweek for private citizens and many people say they cannot evenaccess that. Potentially more serious in the longer term is thelack of work.
"Unfortunately, there are no job opportunities for us," saidone Kabul resident, who declined to give his name. He said heearned 1,000-1,500 afghani a day before the Taliban arrived butnow had nothing.
(Reporting and writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by MikeCollett-White) ((james.mackenzie@thomsonreuters.com; +39 02 66129533 ;))
