China, already Afghanistan’s largest foreign investor, is seen as likely to lead the race to help the country build an efficient mining system to meet its insatiable needs for minerals. A follow-up report by the Afghan government in 2017 estimated that Kabul’s new mineral wealth may be as high as $3 trillion, including fossil fuels.
To date, the Taliban have profited from the opium and heroin trade. Now the militant group effectively rules a country with valuable resources that China needs to grow its economy, DW reported.
In 2010, a report by US military experts and geologists estimated that Afghanistan, one of the world’s poorest countries, was sitting on nearly $1 trillion in mineral wealth, thanks to huge iron, copper, lithium, cobalt and rare-earth deposits.