Chinese Private Firms Eager to Invest in Afghanistan: Global Times

China's private companies are eager to invest in Afghanistan's economic reconstruction as the government's "successful diplomacy with the Taliban" laid the foundation for the safe operation of Chinese businesses there, the Global Times reported citing Chinese businesspeople in Afghanistan. However, Chinese state-owned companies are taking caution to be in line with the Chinese national strategy given Western governments' potential sanctions on the Taliban, the newspaper said. China can help Afghanistan generate self-dependent economic drive, even include the country, which sits along the Belt and Road Initiative route, into the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the newspaper said citing Liu Zongyi, the secretary-general of the Research Center for China-South Asia Cooperation at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies.