Afghan opium production falls sharply

KABUL: Afghanistan's opium production fell 10 percent last year and prices are at their lowest in a decade, meaning "the bottom is starting to fall out" of the world's largest opium market, the UN said yesterday.

A key finding of the 2009 Afghan Opium Survey, released yesterday, was that cultivation in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold where US and British troops have launched major operations this summer, dropped by about a third from 2007 to 2008. Helmand produces almost 70 percent of Afghanistan's opium.

"At a time of pessimism about the situation in Afghanistan, these results are a welcome piece of good news and demonstrate that progress is possible," Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UN's office on drugs and crime, said in a statement.