The National Procurement Authority (NPA) said Sunday the contract for printing afghani banknotes was awarded to Polish Security Printing Works (PWPW).

According to the NPA, the total value of the printed notes will be 10 billion afghanis.

The new banknotes will be in denominations of 10, 20, 50 and 100 Afghanis, the NPA said.

The contract is worth $8.5 million US dollars.

The NPA said the company will implement the contract between six to 18 months.

The contract will provide for increased afghani use in the eastern provinces, the NPA said, as local authorities in the provinces of Nangarhar, Khost, Ghazni, Kunar, Paktika, Kandahar and Laghman have recently prevented the use of Pakistani rupees.

In the past, large quantities of goods were bought with Pakistani rupees in the mentioned provinces.

However, the Central Bank of Afghanistan says that over the past month more than 1.5 billion afghanis have been supplied to the eastern and southeastern provinces for the increased use in local economies.