Kabul builds 50km highway to China

Reuters | Kabul

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Kabul has begun construction of a $5 million road in the Pamir mountainous region — or “Roof of the World” — to connect with China through a land route for the first time, inching closer to realising Beijing’s “huge interest” in investing in Afghanistan, a government official said yesterday.

Building the nearly 50km highway that runs through the Wakhan Corridor in Afghanistan’s northeastern Badakhshan Province will take a year and a half to complete and, once ready, will allow Beijing to export raw materials from untapped Afghan mines for its increasing domestic consumption.

“We have brought some machinery from Tajikistan for the project because the terrain did not allow us to send them from this side,” Khalil Rahman Omaid, a spokesman for the Public Works Ministry, said.