KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban officials at a ceremony in Kabul on Wednesday signed a contract for the construction of a 25-kilometer section of the Qaisar-Laman ring road.
The deal was awarded to the Noorzi Confidence Construction and Road-Building Company, according to Abdul Karim Fatah, the Taliban’s deputy minister of public works.
The contract is valued at 1.4 billion Afghanis ($19 million) and will be executed in exchange for access to a chromite mine in Parwan province, he said.
The Qaisar-Laman road spans 233 kilometers and has been divided into five phases for construction.
The first two sections, covering a significant portion of the highway, were previously contracted to two foreign private companies under the former Afghan government in 2017, with an estimated cost of $85 million.
Afghanistan’s national ring road stretches 3,360 kilometers, beginning in Kabul and looping through 16 provinces before reconnecting to the capital.
According to former Afghan government officials, over two-thirds of the country’s population lives within 50 kilometers of the highway, making its completion critical for economic development and connectivity.
