Uzbekistan, Tashkent, June 27 / Trend, D. Azizov /
Export-Import Bank (Exim Bank) of China will allocate a loan of $28.5 million to Uzbekistan to implement a project to clean up riverbed in the upper reaches of the Amu Darya River and the adjacent channels, a representative at the Agriculture and Water Resources Ministry told Trend on Tuesday.
According to the agency's interlocutor, at present, there is a memorandum of understanding on the financial participation of the Chinese bank in the project between the Finance Ministry of Uzbekistan and China Exim Bank.
The loan will be allocated from funds reserved by the Chinese Government for the countries - members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), for a term of 20 years, including a five-year grace period.
It is expected that the loan agreement will be signed in July and August of 2012.
The allocated funds will be spent for purchase of cleaning equipment, in particular, 30 suction dredges.
Uzbekistan implements a state program on land reclamation of irrigated lands for 2008-2012. The program envisages the construction and reconstruction of main, inter-district and inter-farm collectors with a total length of more than 3,500 km and more than a thousand land reclamation wells, as well as restoration of drainage networks with the length of 7,600 km.
In particular within the program a project is implemented on reconstruction of machine system of the Amu Zang Canal in Surkhandarya region (Southern Uzbekistan) worth $112.6 million. Within the project it is scheduled to reconstruct the irrigation system, which includes three main pumping stations lifting water from the Amu Darya, treatment plants, irrigation and drainage networks.
The project is financed at the expense of a loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) amounting to $73.2 million, funds of the Uzbek government in the amount of $37 million, as well as the project's participants - $2.4 million.
In 2003, the World Bank allocated a loan worth $60 million to Uzbekistan for implementation of a project to reconstruct drainage system in the delta of the Amu Darya River.