ASTANA – Kazakhstan and Afghanistan agreed to create a technical commission to study Afghan mineral deposits during a recent meeting between Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Economy Serik Zhumangarin and Afghan Minister of Mines and Petroleum Hidayatullah Badri in Kabul.
Photo credit: primeminister.kz
Expressing satisfaction with the significant progress in developing relations in the industrial sphere over the past year, Zhumangarin thanked the Afghan side for its support in organizing the field work of Kazakh geologists who arrived in Afghanistan to study potential deposits of solid minerals, reported the Prime Minister’s press service on April 23.
“Kazakhstan has formed a professional pool of mining companies with expertise in geological exploration, production and processing of solid minerals. These companies are interested in discovering and investing in potential deposits,” said Zhumangarin.
Kazakhstan will send another team of specialists at the end of May to study potential deposits in other provinces of Afghanistan. The Afghan side also expressed its readiness to provide information on confirmed reserves of natural resources of interest to Kazakh mining companies, upon their request.
The same day, Zhumangarin met with Ahmad Jan Bilal, the head of the main directorate for state-owned companies, to discuss the possibility of expanding cooperation between Kazakh enterprises and Afghanistan’s state-owned companies.
Kazakh-Afghan business forum
Zhumangarin also participated in the opening of the Kazakh-Afghan business forum, which was attended by 50 Kazakh companies presenting a wide range of goods, including traditional vegetable oil, pasta, rice, agrodrones, and batteries.
“Afghanistan can become a significant logistics hub between Central and South Asia, and Kazakhstan – a reliable supplier of food, technology, engineering, chemical and IT products. We set an ambitious but achievable goal – to increase the volume of trade to $3 billion in the short term. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to build sustainable supply channels, expand the range of mutual trade, and create favorable conditions for investment and entrepreneurial activity,” he said.
According to the preliminary results of the first day of the business forum, commercial documents worth nearly $140 million were signed.
