Afghanistan opened bids on Tuesday to foreign investors to mine the country’s copper and gold deposits in four different areas as part of a new initiative to raise government revenue.
Geologists have known about Afghanistan’s “vast deposits of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and other prized minerals, including rare earth minerals used in cell phones, hybrid car batteries, defense industries and wind turbines,” according to the Associated Press.
Estimates of the potential worth of these natural resources range from hundreds of billions of dollars to $3 trillion. The Afghan government, in anticipation of a gradual decline in U.S. aid, plans to sell the rights for up to five mines every year until 2014.
With improved security and better transportation systems in Afghanistan, more foreign investments could begin to pile up. For now, the Pentagon is facilitating Western investors to put up tens of millions of dollars.
But the Afghan government is one of the most corrupt on the planet, and have shown reckless disregard for property rights and the type of trade policies that would set it on the path of reconstruction after 30 years of war. With the Pentagon securing rent-seeking corporate investments to the Afghan Ministry of Mines for revenue that is highly likely to be utilized for corrupt purposes within the government, constructive prosperity is quite a ways off.
The Afghani mining reports aren't exactly 'news', since it was the Soviet Union that furnished these reports to the pre-Taliban Afghani government. What is very new is that the corrupt Kharzi government is exploring the tapping of those mineral resources. No doubt, Western commercial mining interests would get first chance to access & exploit this bonanza, as an additional inducement to for NATO to remain in-country beyond 2014. The construction of the trans-Afghani Unical oil & natural gas pipelines from the Caspian Basin hasn't worked out, primarily due to military resistance from the Taliban that would threaten the security of such a conduit. If the Kharzi government cannot attain cooperation from the Taliban in support of a petroleum pipeline, how would this corrupt government fare any better garnering cooperation from the Taliban for the exploitation of discovered mineral wealth?
The best way for the Kharzi government to gain reluctant Taliban cooperation about either of these prospective commercial developments would be to disinvite the Western commercial interests, and invite the Iranians, Pakistanis, or even Chinese to begin mining — they all at least could present the Afghani people with a friendly Islamic face. The only problem with that particular solution is that there would be no particular financial incentive for NATO to remain in Afghanistan, and without that military presence the Kharzi government would rapidly collapse.