THE ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF IMPORT DEPENDENCE ON SMES IN AFGHANISTAN- A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

Economic empowerment of developing countries has direct relation with SMES of the country, Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) contributing an important role in Afghanistan’s employment, income generation and overall economic development of the country, however, due to structural economic challenges the survival of SMEs remains uncertain. Heavy dependence on import of raw materials, intermediate goods, energy, and productions inputs (raw materials) is one of the major obstacles of Afghanistan SMEs. There are many barriers in Afghanistan’s business environment which effects SMEs operations, such as reliance exposes firm to supply, chain disruptions, borders closure, exchange rate volatility and trade related uncertainties. Although this is an important cause but still research on Afghan firms is incomplete, and there are no proper studies that clearly identify how dependence on imports affects whether firm survival. In this literature review which includes academic literature and policy reports evaluating the relationship between survival and import dependence of SMEs in the country. In this study SMEs covers early-stage startups as well which reflect the common classifications of startups within the SMEs sector in the country.This study result will discover thatthose SMEs which depends too much on imports, can easily cause in trouble if any problem accrued in importing the goods for running the operations. The review will sum up by identifying key research gaps and highlighting policy implications aimed at strengthen businesses resilience and reducing unnecessary import reliance in Afghanistan.