KHOROG, May 7, 2010, Asia-Plus – The Kulma crossing on the Tajik-Chinese border in the Murgab district, Gorno Badakhshan opened for traffic on May 6, the GBAO customs service chief Mehrafzoun Mehrafzounov, said in an interview with Asia-Plus.
“The crossing works every day, from 9:00 am to 2:00 pm, except weekends and holidays, from May through November,” Mehrafzounov said, noting that the issue of organization of the year-round operation of the crossing has not yet been solved.
We will recall that crossing has worked in this regime sine May 1, 2008.
The Tajik-China trade route, opened in 2004, runs from Khorog, the capital of Gorno Badakhshan in southeastern Tajikistan, over a high-altitude plateau and then down into China, where it ends in the city of Kashgar, 700 kilometers away.
As conditions are so tough at the Kulma border crossing, which is located on a mountain pass 4,400 meters high, until May 1 2008, the gateway had stayed open only 15 days out of every month, while from November through April it had been closed altogether.
In the meantime, Yormamad Faqirov, the deputy chief of the GBAO customs service, noted that compared to January-April 2009 cargo transportation volumes to the region from abroad have decreased over the first four months of this year by more than 660 tons.
