Representatives of Tajikaeronavigatsiya (Tajik air navigation) and the Ministry of Finance of Tajikistan were on a working visit to Paris from June 25 to June 28 to conduct negotiations on construction and equipping of a new control tower at the Dushanbe airport.
According to the Tajik diplomatic mission in Paris, they met with representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Finance of France as well as Thales Group to get acquainted with technical equipment.
The French side reportedly confirmed its readiness to begin construction of the control tower and noted that a group of experts would be sent to Tajikistan in the near future for carrying our preparatory works.
A government-to-government agreement between Tajikistan and France on construction of the control tower at the Dushanbe airport was signed in Dushanbe on July 13, 2015.
The document was inked by the then Minister of Transport of Tajikistan Sherali Ganjalzoda and the then Ambassador of France to Tajikistan Didier Leroy.
According to the Ministry of Transport (MoT) of Tajikistan, an agreement on construction of a 36-meter control tower at the Dushanbe airport was reached in Dushanbe in February 2013.
The project was worked out by French specialists. An official source at a MoT says the cost of a 15-month project is 3.5 million euros and the money will be given in a form of grant.
Recall, a new international terminal was officially opened at Dushanbe International Airport (DIA) on September 3, 2014. To bring the Dushanbe airport up to international air traffic standards, an extension project was launched to raise the overall space of the international terminal to 11,000 square meters with a capacity of 5,000 passengers per hour. The project was implemented under financial support of France which provided Tajikistan a long-term, low interest €20 million loan. Tajikistan’s own contribution was €19 million (October 2012).
Thales Group is a French multinational company that designs and builds electrical systems and provides services for the aerospace, defense, transportation and security markets. Its headquarters are in La Défense (the business district of Paris), and its stock is listed on the Euronext Paris. The company changed its name to Thales from Thomson-CSF in December 2000 shortly after the £1.3 billion acquisition of Racal Electronics plc, a UK defense electronics group. It is partially state-owned by the French government, and has operations in more than 56 countries. It has 64,000 employees and generated €14.9 billion in revenues in 2016. The Group is ranked as the 475th largest company in the world by Fortune 500 Global. It is also the 10th largest defense contractor in the world and 55% of its total sales are military sales.
