How would you describe trade relations between China and Afghanistan?

Probably over 95 percent of the current bilateral trade comprises Chinese exports to Afghanistan, everything from electronics to clothing, furniture and construction materials. Chinese imports from Afghanistan are very limited, consisting mainly of traditional Afghan products such as handmade carpets and jewelry made of lapis lazuli from Badakhshan, a province bordering Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Afghanistan is probably the only country that has lapis. You can see Afghan lapis in ancient Egyptian, Chinese and even Roman monuments. The Mogao Grottoes in Gansu Province have beautiful, blue murals made from Afghan lapis.

What we are trying to do to address the imbalance is to increase or start the export of specialty Afghan products such as Afghan saffron, which consistently wins international awards, pomegranates, pine nuts and marble and onyx, which will have a very high demand in China. We have reached an agreement on the export of saffron and hope it will be implemented very soon. The Chinese use saffron mostly in food, but also in traditional medicine.

In terms of natural resources, in 2007, we granted the first major contract—still the largest to date—to China Metallurgical Group Corp. for the Mes Aynak copper mine in Logar Province, southeast of Kabul, because China is a neighbor and its industry relies on the import of raw materials such as copper.

At the same time, we want to benefit from Chinese investments in Afghanistan. We hope the contract will be implemented fully and start to benefit the people of Afghanistan and the people of China.

We also issued a contract for oil exploration and extraction in the north of Afghanistan to a joint venture between China National Petroleum Corp. and Afghan company Watan Group. We also have several Chinese companies present in Afghanistan implementing projects funded by the Afghan Government or by multilateral partners such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

In 2015, bilateral trade was nearly $1 billion. It was almost the same in 2016. Since we are next- door neighbors, and given the historical and deep economic connections between Afghanistan and China and also the strategic partnership, that trade volume is not reflective of the strength, breadth and depth of the relationship. So we will continue to try to expand our trading cooperation.