Kabul Gaming Business Under Taliban Rule

Headline

Kabul gaming zones receive fewer customers amid economic hardships in Afghanistan.

Intro

As Taliban-led Afghanistan passes through economic hardships, owners of gaming zone business in Kabul say they are receiving fewer customers because unemployment has squeezed purchasing power of the people.

Story

Story: As Taliban-led Afghanistan passes through economic hardships, owners of gaming zone business in Kabul said on Monday (October 12) they were receiving fewer customers because unemployment had squeezed purchasing power of the people. 

Malang, owner of a gaming zone said there were about ten thousand shops and gaming zones in Kabul, which had now been reduced because many businessmen, with falling earnings, could not pay the rent of the shops. 

“We are not ungrateful but it has no comparison to the past. In the past, everyone had a job and now all the people are unemployed. In the past the children who came and played games, all the televisions would remain turned on, but for now, one TV is turned on and the gaming zone is empty. We don’t even have the shop rent,” Malang said. 

“Before the Taliban government we had lots of clients and crowds and nowadays we just have clients that are youths and teenagers,” said Ahmad Rahim, who owned the gaming zone shop for the last 5 years. 

A man, Qaisar, who came to play game, said most places of entertainment were closed since the Taliban came into power though they have not stopped the games. 

“We request from Emirate-e-Islami government to open all the playgrounds so that people can resort there easily,” he said. 

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Monday that the international community must find ways to inject cash directly into Afghanistan’s economy to avert its total collapse. 

He said a growing humanitarian crisis was impacting half the population of Afghanistan though the humanitarian aid continued. 

The Taliban takeover saw billions in central bank assets frozen and international financial institutions suspend access to funds. Banks were running out of money and the government servants have not been paid salaries. 

Also, the food prices have soared. 

Afghanistan's foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi on Monday (October 11) repeated calls for the United States to lift a block on more than $9 billion of Afghan central bank reserves held outside the country. 

The Taliban took control on August 15 as the 20-year U.S. military intervention ended in Afghanistan.