Kabul  - The Afghan ministry of mines will hand over the rights to mine for gold in the northern province of Takhar to a private Afghan company, an official said Friday.

Local media quoted Ibrahim Adil, Afghan minister for mines, as saying, "An Afghan private company won the bidding last year and it would invest around 40 million dollars for extraction of gold located in the northern Takhar province."

According to the minister for mines, the project by the unnamed mining company will create job opportunities for more than 4,000 people in the region.

"Scale and level of gold is not specified so far but according to the contract, 50 per cent of the income from the gold extraction will be given to the Afghan government," Ibrahim Adil told local media.

The Afghan government signed a contract for extraction of copper with a Chinese company called Metallurgical Group Corp (MGC) in November last year.

MGC will invest 2.8 billion dollars to extract copper from the Ainak mine.

The Ainak copper mine, located 30 kilometres south-east of Kabul in Logar province, has over 12 million tons of copper, making it one of the biggest copper mines in the world.

According to the Afghan ministry of mines, the Ainak copper mine has been leased for 30 years to the Chinese company, which will pay 400 million dollars annually in tax to the Afghan government. (dpa)