Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Looks like they'll be growing more pot & poppies
Because when the foreign military funding, which currently provides 97% of the Afghan GNP, ends they will need a new source of government funding. The Mes Aynak mine in Logar province was supposed to make up a large portion of this, but there are problems.
The giant copper mine that the Afghan government has made the centerpiece of its plans for building an economy nearly from scratch is at least five years behind schedule and the state-owned Chinese company that won the bidding has missed key deadlines in its still-secret contract with the Afghan government and is trying to renegotiate the deal, according to several officials and observers inside and outside the Mining Ministry.We may have to keep fighting a few years longer to keep the Afghan government afloat without their having to tap their "reserves" in Dubai & Switzerland.
The Mes Aynak mine in Logar province, about 25 miles south of Kabul, was celebrated as the biggest investment in Afghan history when it was announced in 2007. China Metallurgical Group Corp., a Beijing-based conglomerate, signed a deal valued at about $3 billion for 30-year rights to mine the site, which is thought to contain the second-richest unexploited copper deposit in the world, an amount equal to more than one-third of the copper reserves in all of China...
For years, the Afghan government has touted the nation’s mineral wealth as the heart of its economic plans. U.S. officials have estimated the value of mineral deposits at perhaps $1 trillion, and the Afghan government has claimed they’re worth $3 trillion, but no one really knows. It’s clear, though, that the resources are significant, and include additional deposits of copper, as well as iron, gold, lithium, chromite and gems. There also are reserves of oil and gas.
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