The latest Soviet enterprise is the building of the Salang highway across the Hindu Kush range to shorten the route between Kabul and the northern provinces by 190 km.

The Soviet government promises $22,400,000 in aid to construct the Jalalabad dam on the Kabul river to provide electricity to the capital.

Abdullah Malikyar, minister of finance, declares that a total of 2,540,000,000 Afghanis of the budget expenditure will be used to implement the last year of the 1957–61 development plan.

In a joint statement Khrushchev and Mohammad Daud, the Afghan Prime Minister, declare that in order to establish peace in the Middle East "the application of the principle of self-determination" is the reasonable way to solve the problems of Pashtunistan.

At Kabul, a ten-year Sino-Afghan treaty of friendship is signed by Mohammad Daud and Chen Yi, the deputy premier and foreign minister of Communist China.