Uzbekistan, Tashkent: Uzbekistan and Afghanistan have signed agreements for construction of Railway track and a power transmission line. This power line will transmit up to 1,000 megawatts of electricity from Uzbekistan to Afghanistan and both countries will start the construction before March 2018.
Afghan Foreign Office considers the visit of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to Tashkent as “Very fruitful” as two regional neighbors of Tajikistan signed a contract for construction of a power transmission line, raising more questions about the fate of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan energy Transmission Line of CASA-1000.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani who is in Tashkent, signed 20 documents for enhancing bilateral relations between Afghanistan and Uzbekistan and documents include enhance relations in the sphere of economy, trade and security.
One agreement provides participation in the construction of the new road of the Uzbek side. In turn, Afghans will be engaged in attracting investments for the implementation of the project.
“We reached important agreements on a matter of strategic importance – the creation of transport and energy infrastructure,” Uzbek President Mirziyoyev said after the meeting.
The main part of the common project of the two countries will be the construction of the Surkhan-Puli Khumri power transmission line and the construction of the Mazar-Sharif-Shibirgan-Maymana-Herat railway.
A new railroad with a length of 760 kilometers will create an additional transport corridor in the north-west of Afghanistan. The minimum volume of traffic on the site is planned to increase from 2.2 million tons to 4 million tons per year. The commissioning of a new railway will significantly increase freight traffic.
It is expected that on Wednesday Ashraf Ghani will visit Bukhara, where he will address the faculty and students of Bukhara State University.
It should be noted that Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan have a similar energy supply project, CASA-1000, which provides electricity generation and its further transportation to Afghanistan and Pakistan, where there is a shortage of electricity. The length of the power transmission line in this case is 750 kilometers.
