Is there still hope for China, Afghanistan’s long-stalled US$3 billion copper mining deal?
Afghanistan’s top envoy still striving for a win-win to develop the copper mine a decade after billion-dollar deal was signed
Efforts are being made to resolve a stalled copper mining deal between China and Afghanistan, a decade after the US$3 billion contract was signed, according to Afghanistan’s top envoy to China.
However, it is still too early to abandon hope that state-owned China Metallurgical Group Corp (MCC) will fully implement the agreement calling for development of the copper mine south of Kabul, because the completed project would be a win-win for both sides, Janan Mosazai told the Post in an exclusive interview in Beijing.
“This is the issue that is being pursued right now by the Afghan government and between the Afghan government and the company,” Mosazai said, adding that the discussions remain ongoing.
The project, jointly awarded to MCC and another state-owned Chinese company, Jiangxi Copper, in 2007, was the largest foreign investment deal in the war-torn country at the time.
Under the administration of then-Afghan president Hamid Karzai, MCC agreed to pay Afghanistan $3 billion to lease the Mes Aynak, a site 40 km southeast of Kabul that hosts Afghanistan’s largest copper deposit, for 30 years.