NEW YORK, 27 November 2008: The opium industry is largely funding the Taliban’s war budget and is a major source of revenue for criminal groups and terrorists in Afghanistan despite becoming less important to the country’s overall economy, according to a United Nations report released in London.
This year has witnessed a decrease in the amount of land cultivated for growing poppies, a cut in opium production and a slashing of prices, yet the Taliban are able to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from the drugs trade.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report showed a 19 per cent decrease in opium cultivation to 157.000 hectares, down from a record harvest of 193000 in 2007, and said that production also dropped by six per cent to 7.700 tons.
The size of the country’s opium problem is shrinking as one million fewer people were involved in cultivation this year and the area of arable land used to grow poppies has dropped from 2,5 per cent to 2,1 per cent, according to the UNODC Afghanistan Opium Survey 2008.
Despite reduced cultivation, production and prices, the Taliban and other anti-government forces are able to make huge profits from the drugs business by imposing a 10 per cent charge on economic activity.
Opium farming may have generated 50 to 70 million US dollar of such income.
Kilde: www.un.org
