Chinese group begins multi-billion Afghan project

By Sayed Salahuddin

KABUL (Reuters) - A Chinese firm started work on a copper deposit in Afghanistan on Thursday, part of a multi-billion dollar project and the first major foreign investment of its kind in Afghan history, an official said.

As if to underscore the dangers of working in Afghanistan, just hours before work began at the Aynak mine in Logar province a powerful blast in another part of the province killed 25 people, including 15 school children.

State-owned China Metallurgical Group (CMGC) and China's top integrated copper producer Jiangxi Copper won a 2008 tender to explore and develop the vast Aynak Copper Mine south of the capital Kabul.

Aynak is thought to contain up to 13 million tonnes of copper and is regarded as one of the major ore bodies in the world.

With Afghanistan facing a growing Taliban-led insurgency, security concerns had stopped CMGC from starting work on the project until Thursday.

The deposit was discovered in 1974 and surveyed by Soviet geologists in 1979 has never been developed until now.

Landmines in and around the site had to be removed, and a number of large craters, caused by U.S. bombs dropped on what was then a military training camp in late 2001, had to be filled, a Mines Ministry official said.

"The minister has gone to inaugurate the start of the actual work of Aynak," the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the media.