This man does not avoid an argument.

He doesn't need that either.

Because he is powerful, influential and gripping.

He showed it again on Monday: Andrew Forrest told his shareholders that he was by no means shy away from working with the Taliban.

He now deserves the fame of being the first CEO in the world to publicly announce that he will shake hands with the new rulers of Afghanistan.

Christoph Hein

Business correspondent for South Asia / Pacific based in Singapore.

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However, the founder and CEO of the iron ore company Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) naturally attaches certain conditions to his offer. "We would seriously work with everyone, including the Taliban, if they guarantee equal educational opportunities for girls and boys," said Forrest when FMG presented its financial statements. "You would have to abolish all forms of slavery, including the so-called 'forced marriage'."

These demands roughly correspond to those of the Minderoo Foundation, which he and his family run with billions of dollars and a great deal of commitment.

Among other things, it publishes the worldwide slavery index every year.

What he is demanding of the Taliban are globally recognized values, the FMG foreman emphasized: “For this reason, leading representatives of Sunni and Shiite Islam, Catholic and Anglican Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and Orthodox religious leaders are part of world slavery Day, December 2nd, 2014, personally signed the 'Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders Against Modern Slavery' in the Vatican. "

Natural resources in Afghanistan

Forrest is better known for raising billions of dollars out of the earth.

FMG once again showed record values ​​on Monday.

With an after-tax surplus of $ 10.3 billion for the past fiscal year ended June 30, the Forrest family is now receiving an additional $ 2.39 billion.

The exuberant price of iron ore and higher productivity drove profits 117 percent.

Sales rose 74 percent to $ 22.3 billion.

The shareholders receive $ 3.58 per FMG share.

More records are set to fall.

And with the promise to achieve climate neutrality by 2030, the fourth largest ore giant in Australia is pursuing the most ambitious environmental program in the industry.

The man from Perth has more money with it than he will ever be able to spend. Ideas too. That is why Forrest, who was only getting a PhD in oceanography at an advanced age, recently founded Fortescue Future Industries (FFI). This requires as much foresight these days as Forrest demonstrated in the early 1990s when the then 30-year-old stockbroker opened the Anaconda nickel mine. Almost three decades later, his FFI team visited around 50 countries at the low point of Corona to sound out the opportunities for energy from water, sun or wind (FAZ of December 1, 2020). And where it is therefore worth investing.

For the foreseeable future, he wants to surpass the oil giant Chevron with an unbelievable output of 235 gigawatts of renewable energy around the world. Forrest ". In September he had already signed letters of intent with the government in Kabul, which had now been driven out of office, to invest in hydropower and geothermal energy. Of course, Forrest knows that more than a trillion dollars worth of natural resources are believed to be underground in Afghanistan. Now the ball is in the Taliban's field.