Baku, Azerbaijan, March 23
By Fikret Dolukhanov – Trend:
Uzbekistan has increased export of electric power to Afghanistan 30 times since 2002, the director of the Information and Analytical Center for International Relations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan Eldor Aripov said on March 23.
“We cooperate very intensively in the energy sector”, Aripov told reporters. “Uzbekistan has been a very reliable partner for Afghanistan in terms of electricity supplies during the last 15 years. We have been actively cooperating in this direction since 2002. If you look at the dynamics - the level of electricity supply from Uzbekistan has increased 30 times".
He said that it is very important that the cost of electricity for Afghanistan has been reduced by 35 percent by the decision of the president. Aripov did not specify when the price contraction has occurred.
Meanwhile, the countries will start implementing another project in the energy sector. As a result of the visit of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to Tashkent in December 2017, an agreement was reached on the construction of a 260-kilometer “Surkhon-Puli-Khumri” transmission line, 45 kilometers of which will go across the territory of Uzbekistan.
“I would like to draw your attention to the fact that any energy project produces a multiplying effect,” the head of the center emphasized. “Homes of ordinary Afghan citizens will get electricity. New production capacities and jobs will also be created. All this, of course, will contribute to the socio-economic development of Afghanistan”.
A new power line will be laid from the Surkhandarya region of Uzbekistan to Puli-Khumri in Afghanistan's Baghlan province. According to some reports, Afghanistan consumes about 1,300 megawatts of electricity, most of which comes from Uzbekistan, Iran, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan.