By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
July 25, 2024

Chinese engineers and the Taliban government officially started work on a massive project in Afghanistan to mine the world’s second-largest deposit of copper.

At the July 24 event at Mes Aynak, some 40 kilometers southeast of the capital, Kabul, Taliban officials along with Chinese businessmen and diplomats carried out a ribbon-cutting ceremony as work began on the construction of a road to the mining site.

A $3 billion deal signed in 2008 gave the Chinese state-owned China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC) a 30-year mining concession, but combat between NATO-led troops and Taliban insurgents at the time delayed the project from moving forward for 16 years.

With violence waning since the Taliban’s 2021 takeover of power amid the withdrawal of foreign troops, the cash-strapped Taliban-installed government is eager to exploit the country’s vast and lucrative mineral deposits.

“The time wasted in the implementation of the project should be recuperated with speedy work,” Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Abdul Ghani Baradar said at the ribbon-cutting event.

Taliban officials said it would likely be at least two years before the first copper was extracted by MCC while Chinese diplomats praised the progress as a sign of warming ties between Beijing and Kabul.

“The economic and trade relations between the two countries are becoming increasingly close,” said China’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Zhao Xing.

Since it seized power, the Taliban has faced the task of undertaking the reconstruction and development of a country devastated by decades of war.

But officials have also found their economy suffocated by Western sanctions and dealing with international isolation that has cut them off from receiving financial support.

China has been an exception for the Taliban government, with Beijing vowing to pursue deeper cooperation shortly after the group took control of Kabul.

Beijing has been particularly focused on exploiting Afghanistan’s extensive resource wealth, from oil and gas to rare-earth metals.

Mes Aynak remains one of the most attractive offerings for Chinese firms. The deposit is estimated to contain 11.5 million tons of copper ore, which is vital for electronics components and is surging in value due to its use in growing markets related to electric vehicles, renewable energy, and data centers.

According to a Brookings Institute report, Afghanistan sits on some 2.3 billion metric tons of iron ore and 1.4 million metric tons of rare-earth minerals, and the U.S. Geological Survey has calculated that the country is sitting on $1 trillion in untapped minerals, such as iron, gold, and lithium — an essential but scarce component in rechargeable batteries and other technologies.

Amir Mohammad Musazai, a retired professor from the Department of Geology and Mines at Kabul Polytechnic University, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi that mining Mes Aynak is likely to yield amounts of copper ore worth more than the $3 billion that was signed for the mining rights, given that nearby areas also hold large copper reserves that weren’t factored into the original plans.

While the groundbreaking event at Mes Aynak is a sign that Chinese resource ventures are moving forward in the country after decades of delays due to war, security concerns are still a major hurdle holding back more expansive projects, which often rely on Chinese engineers and other staff.

The July 24 ceremony was closely guarded by dozens of armed men and Taliban officials made assurances that they would protect staff at the mining project.

Chinese workers have increasingly become a target of attacks in the region, including a suicide attack that killed five Chinese enginners in Pakistan in March and a 2021 bombing that killed 13 people, including nine Chinese workers, at a dam project in the South Asian country.

In Afghanistan, at least five Chinese nationals were wounded when gunmen stormed a Kabul hotel popular with Beijing businessmen in 2022.

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