NEW YORK, Feb 1: The International Monetary Fund has extended support to the Afghanistan government’s plan to adopt US dollar as its legal tender until it introduces a new currency.

A report in the New York Times quoted Governor of Afghanistan’s central bank Abdul Qadeer Fitrat as saying that the government would soon decide the issue of using dollar to replace the local currency, the Afghani, which has been ruinously devalued as warlords and counterfeiters have printed their own notes.

Afghanistan’s move towards the dollar won support from the IMF, which sent eight officials here this week on the fund’s first visit in a decade, the report said.

“I personally see more benefits than impediments,” Warren Coats, of the fund’s monetary and exchange department told the paper. “There are several versions of the Afghani currency which are in circulation. That in itself creates an important problem,” Mr Coats said, adding that the dollar could serve as an anchor for Afghanistan’s money supply for two to three years, while the government wrestles with how to introduce a new currency.

Afghanistan’s currency woes are only the most visible manifestation of an economy that has given up any pretence to international standards. Under the Taliban, the government kept little or no economic statistics, and did not bother with accounting.