Exclusive: Afghanistan suffers trade blow as China halts dollar deals with its banks --- (Reuters) - Chinese banks have halted dollar transactions with most Afghan commercial banks, the central bank governor said on Thursday, making it difficult for businesses to pay for imports from one of Afghanistan's biggest trading partners. -- "China is a major country that was handling those bank transfers, and now they have told the banks they can't do it," governor Noorullah Delawari told Reuters. -- The impact on business had been felt immediately, he said. -- Despite intense pressure from Western backers, Afghanistan has so far failed to pass laws meeting global standards against money laundering and terrorist financing. -- That has prompted banks from various countries to halt trade with its commercial banks. -- The Chinese move was part of a trend that was making it increasingly difficult for the banks to execute international transactions, Delawari said. -- "Some of our banks cannot do any direct transactions" because their correspondent banks in the United States, Europe, Germany or Turkey had halted dealings, he said. "Now even transferring money to China to import goods has been affected." -- The Afghan government's failure to pass key measures means that it could in June be blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international body that sets standards on how countries combat money laundering. -- Banks have been struggling since FATF threatened Afganistan with the punishment early this year. -- "That has been affecting our banks' ability to transfer money for anything," Delawari said, describing for example how students abroad were unable to receive money from their parents. -- Chinese banks and officials were not immediately available for comment. - More, http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/22/us-afghanistan-banking-idUSBREA4L0MZ20140522