Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani and Uzbek Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Jamshid Kuchkarov discussed the construction of the Mazar-i-Sharif-Herat railway in Kabul.
“The project has been evaluated,” Kuchkarov said. “Negotiations on project financing are currently underway with Uzbek commercial banks and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.”
The construction of the railway will be of great importance for Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, as well as for all regional countries, Kuchkarov added.
“It will be possible to get from Afghanistan to China in three days through Uzbekistan’s Andijan city due to the project implementation,” he noted.
President Ghani, in turn, said that the expansion of cooperation between the countries would improve the quality of life of the population and contribute to the prosperity of the region.
The Mazar-i-Sharif-Herat project envisages the construction of more than 5,000 linear and multi-module units, including the railway from Herat to Kunduz. Its cost is about $11.2 billion.
Uzbekistan constructed the first long-distance railroad Hairatan-Mazar-i-Sharif stretching 75 kilometers in Afghanistan in November 2010. The project worth $129 million was financed by the Asian Development Bank. (Trend/Business World Magazine)