ASTANA, Kazakhstan, April 29. Kazakhstan and Afghanistan will create a technical committee for geological exploration, Trend reports.
A corresponding agreement was reached during a meeting between the Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, Serik Zhumangarin, and the Minister of Mines and Petroleum of Afghanistan, Shahabuddin Delawar.
At the initial stage, the Afghan side will transfer maps to Kazakhstan, where promising deposits and relevant studies are marked.
Representatives of the Kazakh companies ERG Exploration and Kazakhmys Barlau also took part in the negotiations.
Notably, the territory of Afghanistan has enormous potential for mining. The country has rich reserves of oil, natural gas, coal, iron, non-ferrous ore, and rare earth metals.
Kazakhstan, possessing significant reserves of oil, gas, and solid minerals, has over many years formed a professional pool of oil service and production companies that can compete with foreign suppliers in the fields of construction and installation work, workover of wells, examination, laboratory research, as well as design, engineering, and drilling.
Today, the country is experiencing an increase in private investment in geological exploration. In particular, over the past five years, investments in the exploration of solid minerals have increased 2.5 times (from 33.9 billion tenge (about $78.8 million) in 2018 to 82 billion tenge (about $185 million) in 2023).