Afghan businessmen are confident that with new anti-corruption measures and foreign investment, they can carve out a lucrative industry from one of Afghanistan's most abundant natural resources: marble, Reuters reported. Some experts estimate billions of metric tonnes of the stone (marble) lie untapped across Afghanistan, making it a resource the Afghan and U.S. governments are aggressively marketing as potentially the country's most profitable sector. "The resources are enormous. The job potential is in the thousands, export potential is in the millions (of dollars)," said Paul Lamoureux, a stone consultant working with the U.S. government's aid agency, USAID. Lamoureux, who has worked in Afghanistan's marble sector since 2008, said in 10 years the industry could be close to producing $700 million in exports, equal to more than 6 percent of current GDP.
