On Monday October 22, the handover ceremony of the road maintenance equipment provided under “Project for Improvement of Equipment for Road Maintenance in Sughd Province and the Eastern Part of Khatlon Province” was held in Bobojon-Ghafourov District of Sughd Province, according to Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Office in Tajikistan.
The President of Tajikistan, Emomali Rahmon, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Tajikistan, Mr. Hajime Kitaoka, Chief Representative of JICA in Tajikistan, Mr. Hideki Tanabe and other high ranking officials of Tajikistan Government attended the ceremony.
After handing over the equipment to the heads of the State enterprises for highway management, the President of Tajikistan highlighted the importance of Japanese support and asked all related engineers to properly operate the equipment. He stressed the importance of training for proper and sustainable operation and maintenance of equipment.
The Grant Aid Project for provision of road maintenance equipment was implemented by the Ministry of Transport of Tajikistan and funded by the Government of Japan through JICA in the amount of more than 17 million U.S. dollars.
The main goal of the Project is to properly maintain roads, thereby contributing to efficiency of road transportation and logistics. In line with this, within the framework of the Project, 2 asphalt plants, 2 stone crushing plants were constructed and more than 200 different items of equipment were provided to State Enterprise for Transport Management of Sughd province and Kulob region of Khatlon province.
It is expected that the Project will contribute to 1) improvement of the quality of roads and increasing of their life cycle by producing a mixture of cold and hot asphalt in and using suitable equipment for patching, 2) increase of cost efficiency and quality of work on the replacement of road surface by producing hot asphalt and 3) reduce of the frequency of road closures due to emergency situations (flood and / or avalanche).
Tajikistan has about 30,000 km of total road network with roughly 65% of freight transport and 99% of passenger transport depending on the road network. Maintenance of road is very important for the country to ensure smooth transportation. To this end, JICA has been supporting Tajikistan to improve its road maintenance through provision of equipment and conducting training courses to improve the capacity of road maintenance workers of Tajikistan.
JICA began its technical cooperation with Tajikistan in 1993 by inviting Tajik officials to gain knowledge and experience on governance and macroeconomics development. As of January 2018, a total number of participants to JICA’s Knowledge Co-Creation Programs, formerly called the Training Programs, has exceeded 2100 people. JICA Office was established in 2006 in Tajikistan and since then various Grant Financial Assistance and Technical Cooperation projects have been implemented more dynamically, aiming at improving living standard of Tajik people for the sectors such as agriculture and rural development, water supply, health, transport, energy, capacity building as well as SME promotion. JICA’s cumulative investment portfolio in Tajikistan in all sectors comprises 34 projects amounting to more than 345 million U.S. dollars (82 million U.S. dollars for Technical Cooperation and 263 million U.S. dollars for Grant Assistance), including 12 on-going projects.
