On October 29, 2013 President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan gave a speech at the 2013 World Islamic Economic Forum where he indicated that Afghanistan hold trillions of dollars in natural wealth , including minerals and hydrocarbons that otherwise guarantee a source of wealth and income for generations to come:
“Afghanistan holds trillions of dollars of natural resources, including minerals and hydrocarbons, representing a guaranteed source of wealth and income for generations to come.”
“We already have several state-owned and private companies from China, India, the UK, Canada, Turkey, the UAE and other countries in addition to Afghan companies – investing billions of dollars in copper, iron ore, gold, oil and gas in our country. We are actively seeking additional foreign investments into this sector while remaining diligent to make sure our natural riches serve the goal of a strong legitimate national economy and prosperity for the Afghan people”, said His Excellency Hamid Karzai President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (source: Statement By President Hamid Karzai at 2013 World Islamic Economic Forum http://president.gov.af/en/documents).
It should be noted that “Geological surveys conducted by the Soviet Union in the 1970s and early 1980s confirm the existence of vast reserves of copper (among the largest in Eurasia), iron, high grade chrome ore, uranium, beryl, barite, lead, zinc, fluorspar, bauxite, lithium, tantalum, emeralds, gold and silver.(Afghanistan, Mining Annual Review, The Mining Journal, June, 1984). These surveys suggest that the actual value of these reserves could indeed be substantially larger than the one trillion dollars “estimate” intimated by the Pentagon-USCG-USAID study” (source: The War is Worth Waging: Afghanistan’s vast Reserves of Minerals and Natural Gas http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-war-is-worth-waging-afghanistan-s-vast-reserves-of-minerals-and-natural-gas/19769).
See USGS Resource Estimates of Afghan mineral wealth http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2936&from=rss_home
Oddly enough U.S. companies are not competing with other countries like China to develop or mine the minerals on behalf of Afghanistan. Probably because of the abysmal security situation in that country (see U.S. Embassy Afghanistan, Kabul – Current Travel Advisory http://kabul.usembassy.gov/sa_091612.html).
See video: Valuable Mineral Resources Found In Afghanistan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQNQfaTNK14
See also: Afghanistan Mineral Resources -Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQjZ24G5KHQ