China starts work on Afghan copper mine long stalled by war

By AFP/Joe Stenson

Chinese engineers and the Taliban government broke ground in Afghanistan on Wednesday on a project to mine the world's second-largest copper deposit after a 16-year delay caused by war.

Surveyors estimate Mes Aynak, 40 kilometres (25 miles) southeast of Kabul, contains 11.5 million tonnes of copper ore, a vital electronics component that has surged in price.

A $3 billion deal signed in 2008 gave a Chinese state-owned firm mining rights but it never came to fruition as combat raged between NATO-led troops and Taliban insurgents.

Taliban officials partnered with diplomats and businessmen from Beijing at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Wednesday as excavators began work on a road to the remote site.

"The time wasted in the implementation of the project should be recuperated with speedy work," Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Abdul Ghani Baradar told attendees.

Violence has waned since the 2021 Taliban takeover after the withdrawal of foreign troops, and Kabul's new rulers are keen to exploit Afghanistan's vast reserves of natural resources.

The nine-kilometre (six-mile) road in Logar province is scheduled to be completed early next year.

Taliban officials said it would likely be at least two years before the first copper was extracted by the China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC).

Copper hit record prices in May and analysts say a boom in electric vehicles, renewable energy such as wind turbines and artificial intelligence -- which relies on power-hungry data centres -- will sustain soaring demand.

Neighbouring China accounts for more than half the global consumption of the conductive metal.

China was one of only a handful of missions that remained in Kabul when the US-backed government fell to Taliban forces in 2021 and analysts say Beijing is expanding its influence to explore profitable projects.

The US Geological Survey has estimated Afghanistan's untapped mineral riches at $1 trillion.

"The economic and trade relations between the two countries are becoming increasingly close," China's ambassador to Afghanistan Zhao Xing said at the ceremony.

Security remains a major hurdle.

Even though violence has dropped significantly, the Islamic State group has carried out several attacks on foreigners in Afghanistan.

At least five Chinese nationals were wounded when gunmen stormed a Kabul hotel popular with Beijing businessmen in 2022.

Wednesday's ceremony took place under the watch of dozens of armed guards, and Taliban officials pledged repeatedly to protect project staff.

Earlier plans to mine Mes Aynak were also complicated by the presence of a trove of archaeological relics from an ancient Buddhist settlement that dates back between 1,000 and 2,000 years.

The Taliban notoriously dynamited giant statues of Buddhas carved into Bamiyan mountains during their first rule from 1996-2001.

However, they have pledged since their return to preserve antiquities, including relics from religions other than Islam.