TEHRAN, July 31, YJC - An industrial city has been grown in Uzbekistan near the world's largest open pit gold mine. The prosperous city is called Zarafshan, which translates as 'gold spreading'. The city situated in the Kyzyl desert has the gold mine measuring 4 kilometers long, 2.5 kilometers wide and 600 meters deep. 50 million cubic meters of ore are extracted from the mine every year. Gold is extracted using the heap leaching method which has proven to be efficient, even for low grade ores. According to geologists, the gold resources in the mine will last for at least 200 years. Over the last years, gold has replaced cotton, a traditional Uzbek export, as the foreign trade priority and has diversified the country's economy.