Bazarak, Jul 10 (IANS): A fair of emerald and its products opened in Afghanistan's Panjshir province on Wednesday with the aim of promoting investment in the mining sector, spokesman for the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum Hamayon Afghan said.

The official said the three-day fair is expected to attract investment in the precious and semi-precious mining sector, particularly in extraction of the emerald in the Panjshir province.

"Our aim is to attract more investment in this sector (emerald) to bring more businessmen, and therefore we organized this fair," Afghan told Xinhua news agency.

The eastern Panjshir province with Bazarak as its capital 200 km north of Kabul is famous for having a lot of mines of emerald and semi-precious stones.

Emerald and semi-precious stones like ruby are on display at 60 booths set up at the fair which will close on Friday.

Businessman Hajji Mohammad Ghazi said, "I put on display the emerald of Panjshir. We also have some precious and semi-precious stones here for sale. I have a piece of emerald worth 155,000 U.S. dollars."