Chinese automobile company Dongfeng has expressed an interest to invest $50 million in Afghanistan.

A representative of the company said in a meeting with Ahmadullah Zahid, Deputy Minister of Industry and Commerce, that the company wants to invest $50 million in the automobile manufacturing sector in Afghanistan in four phases over a period of three and a half years.

He added that with this investment, 2,000 vehicles will be manufactured per year.

Welcoming the company’s interest in investing in the country Ahmadullah Zahid, the Deputy Minister of Industry and Commerce, described Afghanistan as one of the safe and secure places for investment with favorable profits.

He assured the Chinese that all domestic and foreign investors will be treated equally and will be fully supported.

In the meeting, the representative of Dongfeng also emphasized that the company’s investment in Afghanistan will create jobs for 500 to 700 people in the country.

He said that the company’s products will include cars, trucks, ambulances, and buses.

Kyrgyzstan has in two months exported 24.9 million liters of gasoline to Afghanistan, the Kyrgyz National Statistics Committee said Monday. 

According to local media, the gasoline, worth $11.5 million, was exported during January and February this year. 

Exports of gasoline to Afghanistan have been steadily rising over the past two years. 

In the first six months of last year, 700 liters went to Afghanistan, against just 19 liters in the same period in 2023. 

Overall trade between the two countries also saw a steady increase after the Kyrgyz government removed the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) from their list of banned organizations in September last year. 

Afghanistan is now the main consumer of Kyrgyz motor gasoline, accounting for about 92 percent of all exports of this fuel.

While Afghanistan has its own oil and gas reserves, particularly in the Amu Darya basin, it relies heavily on imports, especially from Central Asian countries and Iran, to meet its energy needs. 

U.S. President Donald Trump said all purchases of Iranian oil or petrochemical products must stop and any country or person buying any from the country would be immediately subject to secondary sanctions.

“They will not be allowed to do business with the United States of America in any way, shape, or form,” he wrote on Truth Social on Thursday, Reuters reported.

Trump’s comments follow the postponement of the latest U.S. talks with Iran over its nuclear program, which had been due to take place in Rome on Saturday. A senior Iranian official told Reuters a new date will be set “depending on the U.S. approach.”

Trump’s administration has targeted Tehran with a series of sanctions on entities including a China-based crude oil storage terminal and an independent refiner it has accused of being involved in illicit trade in oil and petrochemicals.

In February Trump restored a “maximum pressure" campaign on Iran which includes efforts to drive its oil exports to zero and help prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon.

Secondary sanctions are those where one country seeks to punish a second country for trading with a third by barring access to its own market, a particularly powerful tool for the United States because of the size of its economy.

Analysts have said that to really crack down on Iran’s oil exports the U.S. would have to impose secondary sanctions on entities such as Chinese banks that facilitate the purchases of Iranian oil. China is the largest buyer of Iranian crude.