Graphic source: Times Online
Afghanistan copper deposits worth $88 billion have attracted Chinese investors and if China moves in I would hope the U.N. or international pressure would force the Chinese to provide security in the region. In the Aynak valley, al-Qaeda trained and planned the 9/11 attacks that triggered the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
With such an infamous past, a Chinese mining company begins its foray into the Afghanistan economy. The valley’s floor contains one of the world’s largest untapped copper deposits, estimated to be worth up to $88 billion which is more than double of Afghanistan’s entire gross domestic product (GDP) in 2007. A 30-year lease was sold to the China Metallurgical Group for $3 billion, making it the biggest foreign investment and private business venture in Afghanistan’s history.
This deal is so large, the price tag equalled 20 per cent of all foreign aid to the country since 2001, and the annual royalties of $400 million represent 45 per cent of its state budget. The obstacles are huge in this insecure area and the valley is without basic infrastructure. As in the case of Chinese investment in Africa, no one knows the effect of investment in Afghanistan, according to Integrity Watch Afghanistan, a non governmental organisationwhich, is ill-equipped to absorb huge sums of money or even to consider the social and environmental costs. Afghanistan's largest product is opium so it remains to be seen what effect huge and legitimate mining operations might have on the poverty stricken region.
“Afghanistan has abundant known mineral resources,” said Stephen Peters, of the US Geological Survey, which completed a two-year survey of the country last year. The positives are intriguing to consider though, and may act as a corrective to extremism. The mining will create jobs for 5,000 people, 90% Afghans. Up to 4,000 jobs will be created to build a railway to the Pakistani border, and several thousand security guards will be recruited from surrounding villages. The Chinese are contractually obligated to build mosques, schools, hospitals, markets, and small bazaars.
The site was discovered in 1974 by the Soviets, who built the now derelict buildings, mapped the area and took thousands of rock samples.
Their plans were thwarted by Mujahidin rebels who surrounded Aynak and cut it off from the outside. General Hatiqulluh Luddin, who led the rebels around Aynak and still commands 30,000 men in the area.
The Afghan civil war thwarted any development in the area.
When the Taleban took over in 1996 they showed no interest in Aynak and allowed al-Qaeda to turn it into its main training camp.
Only after the Taleban’s overthrow did Aynak arise again when a team from the British Geological Survey arrived to start recovering and organising the 78 reports and 1,300 maps on Aynak, which were mostly in Russian and based on obsolete Soviet methodology.
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