Jul 27, 2009 - BBC Monitoring

Today the state centre for management of electric power projects held a news conference to sum up the results of the first half of the year [2009], and it was attended by director of the centre Kholmurod Qurbonov, project managers and journalists.

The news conference noted that the centre for management of electric power projects was currently implementing eight investment projects: "Rehabilitation of Tajikistan's energy sector", "Restoration of Dushanbe city energy networks", "Construction of the South - North and Lolazor - Khatlon power transmission lines", "Reconstruction of 220-kV and 500-kV open distribution devices in the Norak hydroelectric power plant" and others.

The centre's director gave details of the project on "Regional construction of the Tajikistan - Afghanistan intersystem power transmission line".

"The line starts in the Sangtuda-1 hydroelectric power plant and ends on the Tajik-Afghan border. It is 274 km long, and 118 km of it lies on Tajik territory and 156 km on Afghan territory. The construction of the 220-kW Tajikistan - Afghanistan power transmission line is expected to end within 18 months. The project is funded by the Asian Development Bank - 10.7m dollars, the OPEC - 7.3m dollars and Barq-i Tojik [Tajik Electricity energy holding company] - 5m dollars. The total cost of this project is 23m dollars," Kholmurod Qurbonov said.

[Passage omitted: Tajikistan is implementing a project to build hydroelectric power plants in rural areas]

Source: Khovar website, Dushanbe, in Russian 27 Jul 09

BBC Mon CAU SA1 SAsPol 270709 /mio

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