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Afghanistan interested in China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan rail project

Business Materials 17 February 2018 13:42 (UTC +04:00)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 17

By Nigar Guliyeva - Trend:

Afghan companies intend to use the opportunities of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, which is under construction, Uzbek media reported quoting a source in the government.

Afghan representatives expressed interest in the railway project during several meetings with Uzbek delegations held recently in Tashkent and Kabul cities.

The Afghan side is interested in delivering cargo by rail from Mazar-i-Sharif city to Andijan city and further to China, and back.

The detailed route of the railway will be ready by April this year. The countries also agreed that a memorandum of understanding on the project’s feasibility study will be developed in August, while the vision for resolving all financial issues will be developed before the end of this year.

The railway is expected to allow creating new transcontinental corridors “China-Central Asia-Caucasus-Europe” and “China-Central Asia-Afghanistan-Iran.” These routes will be shorter in comparison with the existing corridors by almost 1,000 kilometers.

Uzbekistan, for its part, established a multimodal transport and logistics center in the Andijan province. The terminal makes it possible to transport goods from the Uzbek-Afghan border to Andijan.

The emergence of a new transport corridor among Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and China was initiated by Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev last May.

In the near future, the parties intend to fully commission this corridor and transport about 100,000 tons of export-import cargoes along the corridor by the end of the year.

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