Tajikistan

Hayratan to Mazar-i-Sharif project details

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

Asian Development Bank has details of the Hairatan to Mazar-e-Sharif Railway Project. “Interesting to see it all in one place” says Michael G Erickson who spotted it.

The Hairatan to Mazar-e-Sharif railway link is part of the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) Program. It fits with Transport Corridors 3 and 6, which connect Central Asia to South Asia and the region to the Caucasus and the Middle East. Although the road between Hairatan and Mazar-e-Sharif has been improved, it cannot meet national and regional traffic needs. A railway from Hairatan to Mazar-e-Sharif will (i) improve links between Afghanistan and neighboring countries, as well as nearby seaports; and (ii) develop an integrated transport network that caters for different cargo.

The existing Uzbek railway network stops at the border town of Hairatan. This is a gateway to Afghanistan, but it has reached its full capacity (4,000 tons of cargo per month). The flow of goods from Central Asia to Afghanistan will increase from 25,000 tons to 40,000 tons per month over the next few years. To prevent bottlenecks at the border, the existing Uzbek railway at Hairatan needs to be extended into Afghanistan, in a first intervention, to Mazar-e-Sharif. At a later stage, the railway network will be extended to Herat in the west and Tajikistan in the east. The railway will service commercial and non-military cargo.

The project is a priority one for Afghanistan. It fits with its Railway Development Plan. It is closely linked to ADB’s Country Partnership Strategy for 2009-2013, which identifies the construction and rehabilitation of national roads and railways as a priority. It is also consistent with the CAREC Transport and Trade Facilitation Strategy.

The infrastructure:

The Project outputs will be (i) around 80kms railway line from Hairatan to Mazar-e-Sharif with support facilities including rail/road connections and terminals constructed; (ii) established signaling and management information system; (iii) productive use of available land and social safeguarded; (iv) safeguarded and protected environment along railway corridor; (vi) strengthened institutions and management capacity.
Source: Asian Development Bank

Meanwhile, New rail line between Uzbekistan, Afghanistan to serve strategic purpose, reports Central Asia Online:

The construction of the 67km-long line is included in a memorandum of understanding to expand trade and economic opportunities that was recently signed by Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and the Asian Development Bank.

A technical team from Uzbek Railway is scheduled to arrive in Afghanistan shortly to prepare for construction. The cost of the project is estimated to be US$120 million, an amount that will provided by the Asian Development Bank. Construction is tentatively slated to begin in December.
Source: Central Asia Online, 2009-08-29

Medvedev backs rail projects

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

A Reuters report saying Russia’s President Medvedev backs Afghan railway projects.

Russia aims to spur Afghan region economy, win aid

By Roman Kozhevnikov and Anastasia Onegina

DUSHANBE, July 30 (Reuters) – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday brought together the leaders of Afghanistan, Pakistan and their neighbour Tajikistan to try and spur regional economic recovery and attract huge aid flows.
…
“We have a common space, which should be filled with all sorts of projects,” Medvedev said in the Tajik capital after meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.

“We were talking about energy projects, railway projects,” he told a news conference after talks also attended by Tajik President Imomali Rakhmon.
…
Source: Reuters 2009-07-30

ADB supports railway study

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

A news release from the Asian Development Bank, dated 28 April 2009. ADB has also published Islamic Republic of Afghanistan: Railway Development Study (PDF), with some background and a handy map.

Boost for Afghan Plan to Develop Railway System

MANILA, PHILIPPINES – Afghanistan’s push to develop a railway system that will spur economic growth and make the country a key transit and trade route within Asia is to receive support from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

ADB has approved a technical assistance grant of US$1.2 million to fund a feasibility study for two key railway routes in the north of the country. The focus will be on railway lines linking northern Afghanistan with neighboring Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

Land-locked Afghanistan has seen major improvements in its road network in recent years, with support from ADB. However, only half the roads that connect 24 provinces in the country are serviceable throughout the year and the system remains inadequate, inefficient and, in some places, unsafe. Rail provides a more reliable and cost-effective option for moving people and goods, and can help Afghanistan unlock its significant mineral, industrial and agricultural wealth.

An expanded rail system will also help Afghanistan realize its strategic potential as a gateway linking Central, South Asia and the Middle East, and supports the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) group of countries’ transport corridors program.

“The technical assistance support for an expanded rail system will help boost sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction in the country, as well as fostering regional cooperation by boosting intra and interregional trade along the CAREC transport corridors,” says Manzoor Rehman, Senior Transport Specialist in ADB’s Central and West Asia Department. “It will enhance Afghanistan’s economic competitiveness and provide all-year accessibility to its neighbors.”

Feasibility studies will be carried out on two proposed railway lines linking Hairatan, on the border with Uzbekistan, to Herat, in west Afghanistan, and another starting at Shirkhan Bendar, on the border with Tajikistan, and traveling via Kunduz and Mazar-e-Sharif to Herat. ADB will assess long-term traffic demand, and the rail sector’s potential capacity, before making recommendations to the Government on the two routes.

The total project cost is estimated at $1.26 million with the government making an in-kind contribution equivalent to $60,000. The Ministry of Public Works will be the Executing Agency.

Since 2002, ADB has approved financial support of over $600 million for Afghanistan’s transport and communications sector, mostly for roads. This is over 40% of ADB’s overall assistance to the country and around 25% of all donor financing for Afghanistan’s roads. The new technical assistance grant is included in the ADB’s 2009 pipeline for nonlending products and services for Afghanistan, as set out in the ADB’s Country Partnership Strategy: Afghanistan, 2009-2013.
Source: Asian Development Bank 2009-04-28

Tajikistan building railway to Afghanistan

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

A 20 March 2009 article from the Open Society Institute’s EurasiaNet website.

Tajikistan: rail link to Afghanistan under construction

Tajikistan has begun construction on a railway line to connect the capital Dushanbe with the southern city of Khorgan-Tepe near the Afghan border. Once completed, the link could be used by US and NATO forces transporting goods to Afghanistan through the newly opened Northern Distribution Network.

President Imomali Rahmon officially launched the Vakhdat-Yavan section of the line, the Interfax news agency reported March 20. Construction on the $130 million project is drawing on funds from the Tajik state rail company, but the government hopes to attract foreign investors, the report added.

In January Tajikistan received $14.79 million grant to complete a highway running from Khorgan-Teppe to Nizhny Pyanzh at the Afghan border. The nearly 24-kilometer stretch of road will link into a $37-million, US-funded bridge across the Pyanzh River to Shir Khan Bandar in Afghanistan. The bridge was completed in 2007. In August 2008, a border post at Nizhny Pyanzh, built at a cost of $6.5-million by the US Army Corps of Engineers, was given to the Tajik Customs Service.

Source: Copyright 2009 Open Society Institute. Reprinted with the permission of the Open Society Institute, 400 West 59th Street, New York, NY 10019 USA, www.EurasiaNet.org

Iran to Afghanistan railway completed ‘in the next 5 years’

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

Afghan website Quqnoos reports on the Iran — Herat railway construction project. There is a photograph of some railway track, but it could be a stock picture rather than evidence of the work being underway.

Plans to extend the line from Herat to serve the existing railheads are mentioned.

Afghanistan’s railway project which will connect Shirkhan harbor with the western province of Herat will cost $2 billion.

The project which is planned to be completed in the next five years will connect Central Asia with Iran via Afghanistan.

Construction work on the project, from Herat to Iran, has already started. The design of the rest of the railway network from Herat to the Shirkhan commercial transit way is also in late planning stage.

The railway network which will be about 1200 km long will connect Afghanistan’s Shirkhan, Hairatan, Aqina and Torghondi commercial highways with the commercial harbors in the central Asian countries.

…

Meanwhile the media in Tajikistan have reported that work has begun on a railway network which will link Klokhabad with Panjpayan, on the border with Afghanistan.

Source: Quqnoos.com 2009-01-19

Herat line 60% complete, more railways planned

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

Quqnoos reports on the construction of the line from Iran to Herat.

Railway to Iran nears end of the tracks

Written by Zabiullah Jhanmal
Sunday, 19 October 2008 10:32

Ministry hopes to have the railway finished by the end of the year

A new railway linking Iran with the western Afghan city of Herat is 60% complete, the Ministry of Public Affairs said.

The Khawaf-Herat railway, built by the government of Iran, is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

The ministry said it planned to build more railway lines to meet the demand for transportation links between Afghanistan and its neighbours, who use Afghanistan as a transit route for goods travelling to other parts of the region.

The ministry says rail transport is five times cheaper than transporting goods by road.

But one kilometer of railway built in Afghanistan costs about $2 million, the ministry said, and a planned railway between Herat and Tajikistan will cost about $4 billion.

Deputy minister for public affaris, Ahmad Wali Rasooli, said: “After the completion of road constructions throughout the country, and with the increase of transported goods, we are now turning our attention to railroads.

“Now there is a real need for the construction of rail-roads in the country. We plan to connect our borders with our neighboring countries via rail.”

The ministry said the construction of railways between Afghansitan and its neighbours would speed up the flow of goods across the country’s borders.
Source: Quqnoos

Routes from Afghanistan to China

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

There is a a letter in the August 2008 issue of Railway Gazette International from railway consultant David Brice, who has worked in Afghanistan providing advice on transport.

He considers the options for the railway planned to run from the Aynak copper mine to China via Dushanbe and Kashgar, concluding that standard gauge would be the best choice, and “the opportunity to avoid tedious gauge changes must not be passed up.”

China’s role in Afghan copper project

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

In ‘Just World News’, journalist Helena Cobban writes about China’s role in the Aynak copper mine project. The plans include a rail link to China.

China buys in to Iraqi, Afghan end-games

Posted by Helena Cobban at August 30, 2008 01:35 PM
…

If the Chinese really are also going to build a rail line that comes from western China, through Tajikstan, down through Afghanistan (including Aynak,) and through Pakistan to Karachi, then that is extremely significant.

I think the China-Tajikstan connector is already underway…

But the whole project, when completed, will have huge benefits:

  • for China, in its continuing drive to bring economic development to its far-west regions,
  • for Tajikstan and the other landlocked former-Soviet Stans, who have pretty good Soviet-era railway systems– but so far, most of them connect to the outside world only through Russia. This new connector would give them new outlets, to both China and the Arabian Sea.
  • for Pakistan, which gets access to a whole new hinterland and trading bloc there in Stanistan, and finally–
  • for Afghanistan, which gets its first ever long distance rail line– and one that connects, moreover, to such a lot of other interesting and potentially lucrative places. It also thereby gets a way to start exporting not just the massive amounts of copper said to exist in Aynak but all the rest of its currently barely scratched-at wealth of mineral resources.

Win-win-win all round, I’d say. And not just because I’m a committed ferrophile.

Read the full article at ‘Just World News’

Tajikistan to Iran via Afghanistan

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

According to Afghanistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, an agreement is finalised this year for the construction of rail link from Tajikistan to Iran through Afghanistan, presumably using the Herat – Iran railway on which work is now underway.

Minister Spantas press conference in Kabul

30/08/2008 Dr. Rangin Dadfar Spanta the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in a press conference here in Kabul […] talked about the recent trip of a high level Afghan delegation under the chairmanship of president Karzai to Tajikistan to take part in the summit of the shanghai cooperation group there.
[…]
In the sidelines of this summit the heads of states of Afghanistan, Iran and Tajikistan met to discus in details the issues of transit, and trade between the their countries.

In this meeting its was decided that till the end of the current year the text of the agreement in the bases of which the transfer of water and energy to Iran via Afghanistan, and also construction of a railway track from Tajikistan via Afghanistan to Iran that will link Tajikistan and Afghanistan to the Persian gulf will be completed, also the work between the experts of the these countries will soon start to establish a TV station, also honoring the birth anniversary of the famous Dari poet Abu Abdullah Rodake in Herat, and also celebrating the Nawroz festival in Mazar-i-sharif in the month of Hamal were discussed.

In a respond to a question that how Afghanistan can benefit from its transit role in this region? Dr. Spanta said, Afghanistan is a landlocked country we must search proper ways to find a solution for our problems and based on the principles of our government we don’t want to be limited in our ties in the region.

Tajikistan – Afghanistan – Iran railway to be discussed in Kabul

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

The project is to be discussed in Kabul next week, according to the first deputy head of the Tajik Railways, quoted in a story from Asia-Plus. There is currently no rail link between Tajikistan and Afghanistan.

Construction of railroad linking Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Iran to be discussed in Kabul next week
Author: Daler Ghufronov

DUSHANBE, July 15, 2008, Asia-Plus — Issues related to construction of a railway that will link Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Iran will be discussed at a meeting of officials of the three countries that is expected to take part in Kabul next week, Vladimir Sobkalov, the first deputy head of the Tajik Railways, announced at press conference in Dushanbe on July 14.

Sobkalov noted that a joint communiqué pledging tripartite cooperation in the energy and transport sectors was signed by foreign ministers of Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Iran in Dushanbe last March. A railway link connecting Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Iran is part of the project for construction of Tajikistan-Afghanistan-Iran highway.

The Tajik side has already prepared its proposals on the construction of the mentioned railroad, the Tajik Railways official said.

We will recall that the trilateral summit that is scheduled to take part in Dushanbe next month on sidelines of the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will consider this issue.