Coronavirus disease has inflicted $1.5 billion loss on the private sector in Afghanistan, officials said on Sunday.
The pandemic has forced 80 percent of factories in the country to shut down, according to the Chamber of Commerce and Investment.
They have been shut down because of lack of raw materials which were being imported from neighboring countries especially Pakistan and Central Asian countries.
According to the Chamber of Commerce and Investment, 500 containers of goods used to enter Afghanistan from Pakistan before the coronavirus outbreak began. Now that has been reduced to 300 containers.
Aviation has also seen significant drop in revenues with two domestic airlines suffering huge losses.
Data from Finance Ministry show that Afghanistan’s revenues fell by more than 11 billion afghanis in the past three months compared to the same period last year.
Meanwhile, air corridors through which Afghan goods were being exported have been shut since the coronavirus lockdown began.
The Ministry of Industry and Commerce, however, said that the process of exporting through air corridors would resume soon.
The Afghan government has decided to address its budget defecit with foreign aid.
Earlier, the World Bank predicted that Afghanistan’s economy would contract between 3.8 and 5.9 percent this year due to coronavirus.
