Afghanistan

The reporting period for national accounts data is designated as either calendar year basis (CY) or fiscal year basis (FY). For this country, it is fiscal year-based (fiscal year-end: March 20). Also, an estimate (PA.NUS.ATLS) of the exchange rate covers the same period and thus differs from the official exchange rate (CY). In addition, the World Bank systematically assesses the appropriateness of official exchange rates as conversion factors. In this country, multiple or dual exchange rate activity exists and must be accounted for appropriately in underlying statistics. An alternative estimate (“alternative conversion factor” - PA.NUS.ATLS) is thus calculated as a weighted average of the different exchange rates in use in the country. Doing so better reflects economic reality and leads to more accurate cross-country comparisons and country classifications by income level. For this country, this applies to the period 1960-2006. Alternative conversion factors are used in the Atlas methodology and elsewhere in World Development Indicators as single-year conversion factors.