Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has told British Prime Minister Tony Blair he will set up a ministry for narcotics, amid expectations of another major boom in opium and heroin production.
"Tony Blair called the president [on Sunday] and they talked about narcotics, the [abducted UN] hostages, and Afghan elections," a presidential spokesman said.
"The president said he will announce a cabinet-level post for the head of the narcotics department, a ministry," the spokesman added.
Opium and heroin production has boomed across Afghanistan since the collapse of the harsh Taliban regime, which had imposed heavy penalties for farming opium poppies.
It is the world's top producer of heroin, producing 90 percent of the heroin available on Europe's streets.
The trade brought in $2.5 billion last year, some 35 percent of war-shattered Afghanistan's gross domestic product.
Poppy cultivation was expected to jump another 40 percent this year, the US State Department's assistant secretary for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, Robert Charles, said in September.
Poverty-hit farmers growing opium can make 10 times the profit they would by just farming rice, the governor of northeast province Badakhshan, Said Ikramuddin, said in September.
Karzai plans narcotics ministry
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