DUSHANBE, February 25, 2013, Asia-Plus — Brussels is expected to host an investment forum dedicated to Tajikistan’s energy sector this year.
According to the Tajik MFA information department, this issue was discussed at a meeting of Tajik Ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium Rustamjon Soliyev with Mr. Urban Rusnak, Secretary-General of the Energy Charter,
Issues related to holding a joint investment forum in Brussels this year to discuss attraction of European investments for Tajikistan’s energy sector were a major topic of the meeting.
Soliyev reportedly informed Rusnak of goals and objectives of International Year of Water Cooperation declared by the United Nations on Tajikistan’s initiative.
We will recall that in December 2010, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2013 as the United Nations International Year of Water Cooperation. In reflection of this declaration, the 2013 World Water Day, which will take place on March 22, 2013, also will be dedicated to water cooperation. The objective of this International Year is to raise awareness, both on the potential for increased cooperation, and on the challenges facing water management in light of the increase in demand for water access, allocation and services.
An international conference on water cooperation will take place in Dushanbe in August this year within the framework of this International Year and Ambassador Soliyev invited senior representat5ives of the Energy Charter to participate in the conference.
Mr. Rusnak, for his part, highly appraised Tajikistan’s initiatives on water management and cooperation issues, the source said.
The roots of the Energy Charter date back to a political initiative launched in Europe in the early 1990s, at a time when the end of the Cold War offered an unprecedented opportunity to overcome previous economic divisions. Nowhere were the prospects for mutually beneficial cooperation clearer than in the energy sector, and there was a recognized need to ensure that a commonly accepted foundation was established for developing energy cooperation among the states of Eurasia. On the basis of these considerations, the Energy Charter process was born.
The Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) is an international agreement which provides a multilateral framework for energy trade, transit and investments. Originally, the Energy Charter process based on integrating the energy sectors of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe at the end of the Cold War into the broader European and world markets.
The original Energy Charter declaration was signed in The Hague on December 17, 1991. It was a political declaration of principles for international energy including trade, transit and investment, together with the intention to negotiate a legally-binding treaty.
In December 2007, the Energy Charter Conference reaffirmed its support for the finalization of negotiations and adoption of the Energy Charter Protocol on Transit in order to expand the existing provisions of the treaty. In this context, the conference resolved to ask the Energy Charter Group on Trade and Transit to return to multilateral consultations on the draft Transit Protocol during 2008, with a report back to the Conference on the outcome of these consultations at the end of 2008. On March 22, 2010, a Strategy Group was established, with a mandate to promote modernization.
