"Protecting Certain Property of Da Afghanistan Bank for the Benefit of the People of Afghanistan" | |
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Type | Executive order |
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Executive Order number | 14064 |
Signed by | Joe Biden on February 11, 2022 |
Summary | |
Using frozen Afghan assets as humanitarian assistance. |
Executive Order 14064, officially titled Protecting Certain Property of Da Afghanistan Bank for the Benefit of the People of Afghanistan, was signed on February 11, 2022 and is the 80th executive order signed by U.S. President Joe Biden. The telos of the order is providing humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people by using frozen assets. [1]
Due to the lack of a recognized Afghan government, billions of dollars in assets held by Afghanistan's national bank, Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB), have sat dormant in American financial institutions. As a result, these assets have been the subject of litigation, as victims of the September 11th attacks have attempted to take them in order to satisfy outstanding judgments against the Taliban. Because of this, the Biden administration has proposed a plan that would transfer around half of these assets to a third-party trust where they may be utilized for the benefit of Afghans, while keeping the rest in place until the dispute is concluded. [2]
As part of Afghanistan's foreign exchange reserves, the central bank is thought to hold more than $9 billion in assets overseas. Countries keep foreign exchange reserves for a variety of reasons, including facilitating international commerce and protecting the value of their own currency. Financial institutions in the United States have more than $7 billion of the $9 billion in total assets. The majority are held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY), a popular repository for foreign exchange reserves held by numerous countries. [3]
The legal system in the United States permits terror victims to go after assets through procedures that are beyond the executive branch’s purview. The administration's proposal would protect roughly half of the Afghan assets in question from these attachment efforts, allowing them to be used for a variety of future public policy purposes. It also makes legal arguments in favor of the central bank keeping the remainder of the assets. [4]
The economy of Afghanistan has steadily improved in the last decade due to the return of a large number of wealthy expats, the modernization of the nation's agriculture sector, and the establishment of more trade routes with neighboring and regional countries. The billions of dollars in international assistance that came from expats and outside investors saw this increase when there was more political reliability after NATO became involved in Afghanistan's reconstruction. The nation's GDP (PPP) stands these days at about $70 billion with an exchange rate of $20 billion (2017), and the GDP per capita (PPP) is about $2,000. It imports over $6 billion worth of goods but exports about $1 billion worth of legal products, mainly fruits and nuts.
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