ASTANA, Kazakhstan, June 24. Kazakhstan’s Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation, Nurzhan Nurzhigitov, held talks with Gennadiy Zhukov, Director General of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for Central and West Asia, Trend reports.
During the meeting, the parties discussed ADB’s participation in projects for the construction and reconstruction of water management infrastructure.
“We are counting on a long-term and mutually beneficial partnership. The Ministry is developing large-scale projects to modernize water infrastructure, and to implement them, we are actively engaging international financial institutions and working within the framework of the Coordinating Council of Development Partners in the Water Sector,” said Nurzhan Nurzhigitov.
Moreover, the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation provided ADB with a list of projects currently under development. Experts from the international financial institution are scheduled to visit Kazakhstan next month for more detailed discussions.
In the course of the meeting, the Minister also discussed potential cooperation with ADB’s regional leadership within the framework of the international program “From Glaciers to Farms”, which includes measures to preserve glaciers and strengthen resilience to their melting, including the modernization of irrigation networks.
The Asian Development Bank has been cooperating with Kazakhstan since 1994, financing projects worth over $7 billion. Key focus areas include transportation (such as road construction within the Western Europe - Western China corridor), energy (including the modernization of Almaty’s CHPP-2 and green energy development), and social infrastructure.