The Ministry of Industry and Commerce announced that more than $2 million in precious stones have been exported to neighboring countries in the past year.

The spokesman of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, Akhundzada Abdul Salam Jawad, said that Pakistan, China, Uzbekistan, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates and Germany have been important buyers of Afghanistan's precious stones.

Jawad said: “Afghanistan has exported precious and semi-precious stones worth more than $2.2 million dollars to the countries of Pakistan, China, Kazakhstan, Switzerland, Germany, United Arab Emirates, Thailand, Iran, India and Russia during the three quarters of 1402 (solar year)."

Khalid, who has been selling precious stones in the antique alley of Kabul for fifteen years, said that he has more than 100 different types of stones and these stones are from domestic and foreign mines.

Khalid told TOLOnews: “There are some stones that are from our own country, and we import some other stones from neighboring countries such as Iran, Yemen, Iraq, Egypt--each of them has their own fans."

At the same time, a number of precious stone sellers expressed their concern about the decrease of their sales and want the Islamic Emirate to hold exhibitions for precious stones.

"Our request from the Islamic Emirate is to hold exhibitions, to promote and advance people's work, and to provide us with work opportunities, so that we can freely export and re-import our lapis lazuli and promote our work," said Ekramuddin, precious stone seller.

"Currently, we don't have many sales, but in the summer season our sales are good a little," said Fawad Ahmadi, a precious stones seller.

Afghanistan's precious stones have a good market in other countries, but the processing of these stones inside the country is a challenge.