Afghanistan is set to receive more than US$500 million after the United Nations lifts Taliban sanctions on Friday.
The money is desperately needed to pay basic running costs in a government that is effectively broke.
Most of the money is in US bank accounts and gold reserves that were frozen in 1999 in a bid to force the Taliban to hand over Osama bin Laden.
The UN Security Council is expected to lift the restrictions on Friday giving Afghanistan's new interim administration a badly needed cash injection.
State salaries have not been paid for seven months and there is almost no money for repairing the damage of two decades of war.
The world bank has estimated that $US 15 billion will be needed to reconstruct Afghanistan, far short of the government's estimate of $45 billion.
International donors will consider Afghanistan's funding needs at a conference in Japan on January 21.
(People's Daily January 16, 2002)
