TBILISI, Georgia, May 6. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is keen to participate in Black Sea Cable project, if it proves feasible, ADB Director General for Central and Western Asia Eugenue Zhukov said in an exclusive interview with Trend on the sidelines of the ADB annual meeting in Tbilisi.
ADB director general noted that the Bank is a keen supporter of regional cooperation, because it is probably one of the few MDBs where the regional cooperation is mandated in its charter documents.
“In the case of Central Asia and Caucasus, in early 2000s we established Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation Program (CAREC). Since that time, total investments in regional cooperation, including connectivity, have exceeded $50 billion. There is of course ongoing study on the Black Sea cable, going from Azerbaijan to Georgia, from Black Sea to Romania and the rest of the European Union. Feasibility study ongoing now. We hope that it is preliminary finished by mid or end of this year. So if the study demonstrates that the project is feasible, we are very keen to participate in that. I think it is a very large project and if it is going to happen, I think there will be room for many IFIs to participate. Then if we look to the east, indeed we saw that a few days ago in Tashkent, the governments of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan signed a preliminary MoU on the possible underwater cable crossing the Caspian Sea from Uzbekistan to Kazakhstan and to Azerbaijan on the so-called green energy corridor. Uzbekistan has been investing quite a lot to produce renewable energy, solar and wind, in the western parts of the country, while most of the economic base is actually in east of Uzbekistan. We think that these projects have potential to produce green energy, which then can be supplied for this proposed green corridor, but we believe that a lot of investments will be needed for this to happen,” he said.
On December 17, 2022, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania, and Hungary signed a strategic partnership agreement that provides for the construction of an energy bridge from the Caucasus region to Europe.
As per the agreement, a 1,000 MW Black Sea Energy submarine electric cable spanning 1,195 kilometers is set to be constructed. The cable is intended to transmit 'green' electricity generated in Azerbaijan, routed through Georgia and the Black Sea to Romania, and further distributed to Hungary and the rest of Europe. This infrastructure will facilitate the supply of up to four gigawatts of green energy.