KABUL (Agencies): China’s largest oil company is due to start commercial production of crude oil in Afghanistan shortly, heralding a resource boom that could transform the country’s economy over the next decade, the country’s mining minister said.
Extraction of metals and oil could account for 45% of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product by 2024, Minister of Mines Wahidullah Shahrani told The Wall Street Journal Wednesday on the margins of an investment and mining conference where he is meeting potential investors.
Recent surveys have shown Afghanistan to be endowed with rich unexploited assets, but its security situation could be a sticking point for some investors.
Nearly all of Afghanistan’s recoverable mineral resources, estimated by the U.S. Geological Survey to be worth $1 trillion, are still under the ground, said the minister, who has held the mining portfolio for the past three years.
