April 21, 2022: China has held talks with Taliban leaders in Afghanistan about investment to develop that country’s mining industry, including a lead mine project, Afghanistan’s Bakhtar News Agency reported on April 11.

According to the BNA, Afghanistan’s acting minister for mines and petroleum, Sheikh al-Hadith Shahabuddin Delawar, said the Taliban-controlled regime wanted to “facilitate” renewed investment in the country to boost the economy and “alleviate poverty”.

China’s state Xinhua News Agency confirmed that a Chinese delegation had discussed the potential for taking part in upcoming bids for further exploration and extraction of material from a lead mine in Afghanistan’s central Ghor province and an iron mine in the neighbouring Herat province.

A “cabinet economic commission” has tasked Afghanistan’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum to draw up contracts to develop the country’s mining sector as a way of rejuvenating industry, Xinhua said.

According to a 2007 preliminary assessment published by a US Geological Survey and Afghanistan Ministry of Mines Joint Mineral Resource Assessment Team, lead and zinc deposits in Afghanistan contained a known resource of around 240,000 tonnes  of lead and zinc combined — some 173,000 tonnes of which was in the Ghor province with the remainder spread across Kandahar, Herat and Paktia provinces.

Photo credit: BNA