Asian bank to lend $500m for Tajik power plant project

By BBC Monitoring

The Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) will allocate $500m in soft loans for a Tajik project to build a major power plant called "Roghun", the Tajik president's website reported on 17 May. AIIB President Jin Liqun announced this during a meeting with the visiting Tajik president, Emomali Rahmon, in Beijing the same day.

During the meeting, the Tajik leader and the AIIB president discussed the development of cooperation between Tajikistan and the international financial institution, the report said.

The website quoted President Rahmon as saying that the AIIB is Tajikistan's "reliable partner" and expressed confidence that the results of the meeting would "give a new impetus to the process of development and expansion of bilateral cooperation".

"During the talks, the sides exchanged views on strengthening cooperation in the further financing of the development of 'green infrastructure' in the spheres of transport, energy, housing and communal services and municipality. It was considered necessary to strengthen cooperation, attract more capital to priority projects for the development of infrastructure, industry and the private sector, to increase economic activity and to support entrepreneurship," the website said.

The sides also considered other issues of mutual interest.

Rahmon is paying an official visit to China, where he will also attend a China-Central Asia summit in Xian on 18-19 May. President Xi Jinping will chair the summit, his first in-person meeting with Central Asian counterparts. The leaders are expected to draw up new blueprints for China-Central Asia cooperation.

According to Beijing, China's trade with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan reached $70bn last year and expanded 22% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2023.

Source: Tajik president's website, Dushanbe, in Tajik 1132 gmt 17 May 23