REUTERS
Landlocked neighbors Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan announced plans for a regional railway that will allow them to expand trade with former Soviet countries and reach markets in south Asia.
The new 400-kilometer (250-mile) route, expected to cost $1.5 billion, will turn Turkmenistan into a major railway transit country linking Russia and other former Soviet states with south Asian countries such as Pakistan. It also will allow Tajikistan to import oil products and other vital cargo.
Boosting trade with other parts of Eurasia would help Afghanistan as well, which could also turn into a transit nation for goods flowing from Europe and central Asia to the south.
Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, joined by his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai and Tajikistan’s Emomali Rahmon, cemented a symbolic golden capsule with a message to future generations into the foundation of the future railway near the town of Atamurat in southeastern Turkmenistan in June 2013.
“One can call it a road of life,” Rahmon said after the ceremony. “In the age of globalization and integration, it will boost investment and trade.”
The project aims to link the neighbors’ existing rail networks with other parts of Eurasia, primarily with the countries of the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States and the Baltic region.
For fast-growing Turkmenistan, once one of the poorest Soviet republics, this is the second large-scale regional railway project.