DUSHANBE, August 8, 2008, Asia-Plus — Tajikistan and France are signing a financial protocol on the project for construction of a new terminal art the Dushanbe airport today, according to the Ministry of Finance.
The protocol will be inked by Finance Minister, Mr. Safarali Najmuddinov, and the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of France to Tajikistan, Mr. Olivier Maitland Pelen.
As it had been reported earlier, representatives of France’s companies Sofema Group and Alpha Airport presented a model of a new international terminal in Dushanbe in late July.
The terminal with an acceptance rate of 500 passengers per hour and meeting all international standards is expected to be located on an area of 11,000 square meters, which is four times more than the territory of the present Dushanbe airport. It will have 16 check-in counters connected to the automated system of registration of passengers and their luggage. The terminal will have two covered passenger ramps with four telescopic boarding bridges.
According to the Tajik national air carrier, the project for construction of the new international terminal at the Dushanbe airport will be financed mainly due to a long-term preferential loan that will be provided by the Government of France.
Political dialogue between Tajikistan and France has improved since 2001. An agreement signed on December 8 2001 authorizing the stationing of French forces allowed for the immediate deployment of an air transport group of about a hundred men at Dushanbe airport. At the same time, the French diplomatic office was opened in Tajikistan. Following President Rahmon’s official visit to Paris in December 2002, it was turned into a fully operating Embassy. Military and defense cooperation was initiated and formalized between the two countries by a defense cooperation agreement signed on December 30 2002, during the visit of Ms. Michele Alliot-Marie, who was French Defense Minister at that time, to Dushanbe. An aeronautical engineering detachment took part in the study carried out on the Dushanbe airport runway.
President Rahmon made a working visit to Paris on October 10-11 2005, on the sidelines of the Tajikistan Days at UNESCO.
We will recall that during her visit to Dushanbe in December 2006, Ms. Alliot-Marie said that France”s Defense Ministry can allocate 7 million euros in grants and 17 million euros in preferential loans to rebuild the Dushanbe airport. She noted that the funds can be used to build a new terminal as well as to reconstruct the parking lot.
