Exchange Companies of Pakistan (ECAP) Chairman Malik Bostan blamed on Monday Pakistan’s poor dollar reserves on illegal outflows to the tune of $2 billion to Afghanistan every month.

The money changer, while addressing a press conference in Karachi, said Pakistan’s economic distress was due to political instability and the hoarding of the dollar by speculators. He appealed to investors and exporters to invest in the Pakistani rupee instead of the dollar.

Bostan said that Pakistani businesses and importers make payments through hundi, an illegal channel for remittance and money transfer across borders. He said that he had suggested to the finance minister to end cash trade with Afghanistan and instead have it done through letters of credit (LCs) in the local currency.

He claimed that an amount of $180 billion was transferred from Pakistani banks to foreign countries over the last 27 years.

He called for a cap on such transactions, saying that commercial banks should not be allowed to transferring more than $100,000 dollars annually abroad without the permission of the State Bank.

He suggested that $5 billion dollars in monthly imports should be reduced to save dollars.