Maintaining a military presence in Afghanistan is costing Germany roughly three times as much as forecast under the country's Defense Ministry budget, according to a study by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW).

The official yearly budget for the Bundeswehr mission in the war-torn country stands at 785 million euros ($981 million). But the DIW paper says the costs have ballooned by as much as 3 billion euros a year.

The study put the total cost of the war effort at between 25 and 46 billion euros, assuming Germany maintained a troop deployment of around 5,350 soldiers and began pulling out of the country from 2013.

It also said that if Germany were to pull its forces out of Afghanistan in the coming year then the total costs would be between 18 and 32 billion euros.

DIW said that, in addition to direct expenditures by the Defense Ministry, it based its computations on costs incurred by other ministries as a result of the war, as well as costs associated with troop casualties.

dfm/dpa/AP

Editor: Martin Kuebler