Azerbaijan, Baku, April 9 / Trend V.Zhavoronkova /
Kyrgyzstan will not build China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway in exchange for its fields, country's deputy Prime Minister Djoomart Otorbayev said in an interview with KyrTAG.
"At present Kyrgyzstan is discussing with China the issue of development of the feasibility study. Then negotiations with China on the terms of financing, the legal status of the railroad and a business plan will begin that will allow us, apparently, to operate the road on the basis of the concession," Otorbayev said.
He said it's necessary to have a business plan that will show how the railway will return funds invested in its construction. The idea is that as the road is operated costs will be returned to the investor. There is an option that we will conclude a contract in which some joint venture company will operate part of the railway's section, receive income and thus return invested funds," he said.
He noted there are several companies which have sufficient funds and experience to implement this project. "It's a little early to say who they are, because we expect more detailed proposals. Under the negotiations with parties concerned, we intend to identify for our country the best option. I can assure you that the discussion will be very open, the society will be aware of any steps we have taken in this matter," said Otorbayev.
The Deputy Prime Minister noted that huge funds will be invested in the construction, so it's necessary to clearly understand how quickly the project can be implemented, which traffic the railway will ensure and, more importantly, what dividends the country will receive each year and all of these calculations will be carried out within the feasibility study.
"Preliminary feasibility study was done 10 years ago, since then the prices for energy, metals, fuels and lubricants changed. Therefore, the figures that we now operate are very conventional. Task of the feasibility study is to show the real cost of the project, estimated costs and revenues," he added.
Earlier some mass media outlets reported that China considers fields of Sandyk, Ishtamberdy and Zhetim in exchange for investment in construction of China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, referring to the Chinese company China Road and Bridge Corporation. To date, issues of project financing and technical standards (track width) remain unresolved in the negotiations on the construction of the railway.
On the issue of funding an option of attracting long-term soft loan under the "resources in exchange for investments" was previously considered. Materials on the four mineral deposits (Terekkan, Perevalnoe, Sandyk, Jetym), reserved by the order of the Kyrgyz government dated April 18, 2009 to provide funding for the project were transferred to the Chinese side's consideration.