KABUL (SW) – The Islamic Emirate authorities have vowed to enhance the minerals processing capabilities within Afghanistan in a bid to end reliance and cheap export of the raw minerals.
Officials at the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum said on Thursday that from now on, mining contracts will be awarded only to companies that have processing machinery and process them domestically.
According to the officials, this will create job opportunities for the people and foreign countries will not be able to export Afghanistan’s mining materials to the rest of the world in their own name.
Mufti Ismatullah Burhan, a spokesman for the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, said the 20 small-scale mining contracts signed by the previous government had been renewed with the contractors for implementation after some reforms.
He said that the extraction at 6 big mines has been planned and the sites tendered while the process of extraction at 3 small mines has been completed and it will be put out to tender next week.
Burhan assured that the Islamic Emirate has stopped arbitrarily mining and transportation of extracted materials.
The spokesman for the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum added that with the advent of the Islamic Emirate, Chinese embassy and other Chinese officials have shown readiness to implement the agreement reached with the previous government on the Mes Aynak Mine.
He said a Chinese delegation would visit Kabul in late March to discuss the issue. But he also insisted that the Chinese firm must comply with the four conditions set by the previous government.
“The processing has to be done in Afghanistan, which will create jobs for more people,” he said. “The other thing is that they have to build the 3 megawatt power generation station that we demand, and build the road that they had agreed to build, and the railway track. So if they accept it all, they are assured of the Islamic Emirate support.”
At the same time, some economists say that the start of the mining process is in the country’s interest provided it is transparent.
Economist Shahab Ali Shahab says that in the current context, there is no room for large-scale mining in Afghanistan, and serious caution should be exercised in this regard.
Afghanistan is believed to sit on minerals worth trillions of dollars.
ENDS
