Afghanistan’s Taliban announced Thursday they have signed more than $6.5 billion worth of mining contracts with local and foreign companies from China, Iran, Turkey and Britain.

Shahabuddin Dilawar, the Taliban minister of mines and petroleum, said the seven contracts cover the extraction and processing of gold, copper, iron, lead and zinc in four Afghan provinces — Takhar, Ghor, Herat and Logar.

The nationally televised signing ceremony occurred as the de facto Afghan authorities marked the second anniversary of the withdrawal of all U.S.-led NATO troops from the country after nearly 20 years of war with the then-insurgent Taliban.

Dilawar said the seven contracts signed Thursday “will collectively bring a $6.557 billion investment” and create thousands of jobs in Afghanistan.

The minister said that an agreement awarded to a Chinese company for gold extraction in Takhar would bring the Taliban government a 65% share of the earnings over five years.

Dilawar said other contracts involving Turkish, Iranian and British investments for mining and processing iron ore in Herat would earn the government a 13% share over 30 years. “It will eventually turn Afghanistan into an exporter of iron,” he said.

Skeptics question the viability of the contracts, citing international economic sanctions imposed on the country after the Taliban reclaimed power in August 2021.

“The Afghan financial and banking sector is almost paralyzed and dysfunctional. Hence, no financial transactions or valuations,” Tamim Asey, a former official with the Afghan ministry of mines and petroleum, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

He argued that the Afghan ministry “lacks technical-legal-police capacity” to manage and oversee such mining contracts.

“The legal-policy framework for the mining sector is not only vague but almost nonexistent. The regime doesn’t even have a constitution, let alone mining legal framework,” Asey said.

Earlier this year, a Chinese firm signed an oil extraction contract with the Taliban administration. Beijing lately has also shown interest in investing in lithium mining in Afghanistan.

The landlocked South Asian country reportedly has more than $1 trillion worth of precious minerals, including deposits of highly sought-after lithium used in rechargeable batteries.

The Taliban have stabilized Afghanistan’s economy and increased trade with neighboring and other countries, according to regional officials and independent monitors.

The World Bank said in its report last month that “the year-on-year inflation has been negative” for the past two months in Afghanistan.

“The supply of goods has been sufficient, but demand is low. Over 50% of Afghan households struggle to maintain their livelihoods and consumption,” the report said. It added that the local currency, the Afghani, appreciated against major trading currencies in the first seven months of 2023.

But the Taliban’s men-only government in Kabul remains under fire from the world because of its restrictions on women’s access to work and education.

Since seizing power from a U.S.-backed Afghan government on Aug. 15, 2021, the Taliban have imposed their strict interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia, in the conflict-torn nation.

Edicts from reclusive Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada primarily set the policy guidelines for his government.

Akhundzada has banned girls from attending schools past the sixth grade and most women from working for the government and nongovernmental aid groups in a country where two-thirds of the population needs humanitarian assistance. The Taliban have closed thousands of women-run salons nationwide. Women are barred from visiting public parks and gyms and undertaking road trips without a male guardian.

The treatment of Afghan women has deterred foreign governments from recognizing the Taliban administration in Kabul, known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

The last American soldier departed Afghanistan on Aug. 30, 2021, ending the longest war in U.S. history.

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden defended his troop exit decision in a statement marking the second anniversary of ending the Afghan war.

“We have demonstrated that we do not need a permanent troop presence on the ground in harm’s way to take action against terrorists and those who wish to do us harm,” Biden said.

The president referred to the July 30, 2022, drone strike that killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in his home in downtown Kabul.
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Проєкт покликаний допомогти полагодити приблизно ті дві третини пошкоджених житлових будинків в Україні, які вважаються придатними для ремонту
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«Транспортний безвіз» діятиме для вантажівок стандарту Євро-5 та вище
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U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo wrapped up a four-day visit to China on Wednesday in the latest move by U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration to stabilize commercial and trade links between the world’s two largest economies.

In public remarks Wednesday, Raimondo said that she is hopeful about holding regular and direct talks with Chinese officials, but that she is “very clear-eyed” and does not expect every issue with Beijing will be resolved “overnight.”

Earlier in her visit, she said American companies have told her that China’s unlevel playing field and unpredictable regulatory environment with steep penalties have made the country “uninvestible.”

Raimondo said the two sides planned to hold meetings with technical experts to talk about disputes over protecting trade secrets as well as sharing information about export controls.

“We are not returning to the days when we had dialogue for dialogue’s sake, but shutting down communication and de-coupling services is neither in our economic or national security goals,” Raimondo told reporters during a phone briefing.

While the United States and China maintain more than $700 billion in annual trade, escalating tensions in recent years have made it more challenging for U.S. firms to operate in China.

“I did mention that my own emails had been hacked,” she said, “and I mentioned that as an example of an action that erodes trust at a time that we are trying to stabilize the relationship and increase channels of communication.”

U.S. officials have said Washington is not seeking a “de-coupling” with the Beijing government, but focusing on “de-risking.” Biden signed an executive order earlier this month to restrict U.S. investments in some sensitive and high-tech industries in China, including in semiconductors, microelectronics, quantum computing and certain artificial intelligence capabilities.

In Beijing, Chinese officials said the United States was engaging in “de-coupling” under the guise of “de-risking.” China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on Aug. 10 that the U.S. decision “seriously disrupts the security of global industrial and supply chains.”

The two countries have traded other restrictions in recent months.

In May, China’s Cyberspace Administration banned its corporations from buying memory chips from U.S.-based Micron Technology Inc., as the U.S. works with its allies to ensure that advanced semiconductor manufacturing stays out of the reach of the Chinese industry.

In March, Chinese officials closed the Beijing offices of the U.S. due diligence company Mintz Group and detained five of its employees, accusing the firm of doing “unapproved statistical work.” With 18 offices worldwide, Mintz Group specializes in background checking, fact gathering and internal investigations.

Raimondo visited Shanghai Disneyland and a Boeing facility, as well as New York University’s campus in Shanghai on Wednesday, after meetings with Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng on Tuesday.  She held meetings with Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao on Monday.

Although Raimondo agreed to launch an information exchange on export control enforcement and a new working group on commercial issues, Congressional critics are skeptical about Washington’s ability to work constructively with Beijing.

Congressman Michael McCaul, a Republican who chairs the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, accused the Biden administration of being “at best naive” in starting a working group with China.

McCaul said it is a dangerous move because the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, “steals U.S. intellectual property and hacks the emails of senior government officials, including Secretary Raimondo. The administration must stop treating the CCP as anything other than an adversary who will stop at nothing to harm our national security and spread its malign authoritarianism around the globe.”

Raimondo’s visit follows recent trips by other senior U.S. officials, including CIA Director Bill Burns in May and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June, as well as separate trips by U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen and U.S. Special Envoy on Climate John Kerry in July.
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Brazilian mining company Vale SA sees declining steel demand in China, the world’s largest producer, but the situation is not as dire as some indicators suggest, the company’s vice president of iron ore solutions told Reuters.

Vale is “cautiously optimistic” about the largest global consumer of iron ore, as China’s economy has proved resilient, despite uncertainties surrounding possible stimulus measures to achieve growth targets, the Vale executive, Marcello Spinelli, said.

“We can see that there is demand [for steel]. It’s declining, but not to the extent that some isolated indicators show to some analysts,” Spinelli said. “When you reconcile it with the property numbers [in the construction sector], there is this divergence.”

Vale is heavily dependent on sales to China, even as it works to diversify with its base metals unit. Last year, China bought 190 million metric tons (290 million tons) of iron ore and pellets from Vale, representing around 63% of total sales in those segments, according to company data.

Spinelli acknowledged significant distrust among analysts about China’s building sector, following liquidity problems for some real estate developers. However, he said many analysts overlook that nondeveloper entities are actively constructing homes at elevated levels, partially offsetting the decline.

He also said low iron ore and steel inventories offer support for the market.

Iron ore inventories at China’s ports are at their lowest levels in almost three years, around 118 million metric tons (130 million tons), according to data from consultancy SteelHome. Prices are still holding above $110 per metric ton, but far from this year’s peak near $130 and last year’s high of $150.

“There’s a lot of volatility because nobody knows what the central government is going to decide [about stimulus]. We have to wait a bit,” Spinelli said.

“We’re cautious optimists, that’s what we are. There is a stabilization of the economy at a very high level, and with some adjustment, yes, [growth] will slow moderately over the next five, 10 years, but in a way that is already foreseen,” he said.
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Toyota said Tuesday it has been hit by a technical glitch forcing it to suspend production at all 14 factories in Japan.

The world’s biggest automaker gave no further details on the stoppage, which began Tuesday morning, but said it did not appear to be caused by a cyberattack.

The company said the glitch prevented its system from processing orders for parts, resulting in a suspension of a dozen factories or 25 production lines on Tuesday morning.

The company later decided to halt the afternoon shift of the two other operational factories, suspending all of Toyota’s domestic plants, or 28 production lines.

“We do not believe the problem was caused by a cyberattack,” the company said in a statement to AFP.

“We will continue to investigate the cause and to restore the system as soon as possible.”

The incident affected only Japanese factories, Toyota said.

It was not immediately clear exactly when normal production might resume. 

The news briefly sent Toyota’s stocks into the red in the morning session before recovering.

Last year, Toyota had to suspend all of its domestic factories after a subsidiary was hit by a cyberattack.

The company is one of the biggest in Japan, and its production activities have an outsized impact on the country’s economy.

Toyota is famous for its “just-in-time” production system of providing only small deliveries of necessary parts and other items at various steps of the assembly process.

This practice minimizes costs while improving efficiency and is studied by other manufacturers and at business schools around the world, but also comes with risks.

The auto titan retained its global top-selling auto crown for the third year in a row in 2022 and aims to earn an annual net profit of $17.6 billion this fiscal year.

Major automakers are enjoying a robust surge of global demand after the COVID-19 pandemic slowed manufacturing activities.

Severe shortages of semiconductors had limited production capacity for a host of goods ranging from cars to smartphones.

Toyota has said chip supplies were improving and that it had raised product prices, while it worked with suppliers to bring production back to normal. 

However, the company was still experiencing delays in the deliveries of new vehicles to customers, it added.
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