The contract is the first of its kind since the group took power in August 2021.
Jan. 5 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The authorities established by the Taliban in Afghanistan have signed a contract this Thursday with a Chinese company for the extraction of oil in the Amu river basin, located in the north of the country, in which it represents the first agreement of this type since the fundamentalists seized power in August 2021.
The spokesman for the Taliban and Afghan Deputy Minister of Information, Zabihulá Mujahid, has stated on his account on the social network Twitter that the signing took place at the Government Information and Media Center in the capital, Kabul.
The event was attended by the Afghan Minister of Mines and Oil, Shahabudin Delauar, who stated that it is “a very important contract” and “unprecedented in the last 50 years”, as revealed by the Taliban vice-spokesman , Bilal Karimi.
Thus, he explained that the Chinese company Central Asia Petroleum and Gas Co (CPEIC) will be able to work in an area of 4,500 square kilometers and has revealed that the company will invest 150 million dollars a year (around 141.4 million euros) during the three years of exploration and extraction.
Delauar has stated that 3,500 people will be employed in the project, “all of them young Afghans”, before influencing that the work to process the extracted oil will be carried out in Afghanistan, as Karimi has pointed out through his account on Twitter.
In this line, it has specified that there is a clause in the contract that specifies that if the Chinese company does not fulfill the commitments within a period of one year, the agreement will be cancelled. The contract also includes that the Islamic Emirate will own 20 percent of the oil fields, with a bonus of 15 percent, although the figure could increase to 75 percent.
For his part, the Taliban vice prime minister, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, has stressed that the authorities seek to “develop the country.” “Some people do not see the work and the efforts that are carried out and cry. We assure that there will be more progress,” he concluded.
The Chinese ambassador to Afghanistan, Wang Yu, has stressed that “this contract is important for the economic growth and self-sufficiency of Afghanistan,” according to the Afghan television network Ariana. “It is a good example of cooperation and interaction between the two countries,” he praised.
China has so far not recognized the Taliban authorities, although it has significant economic interests in the country. In fact, the Chinese state-owned National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) signed an agreement in 2012 with the then-standing authorities to extract oil from the Amu River basin.
