Tajikistan’s lower house (Majlisi Namoyandagon) of parliament has ratified an agreement between the Ministry of Industry and New Technologies of Tajikistan, China’s Xinjiang Tebian Electric Apparatus Stock Co. Ltd (TBEA) and Open Joint-Stock Company (OJSC) Dushanbe TBEA Mining on implementation of the project on construction of combined heat and power (CHP) plants by “resource method.”
A regular sitting of the Majlisi Namoyandagon, presided over by its head, Shukurjon Zuhurov, took place on November 28.
Presenting the document to lawmakers, the First Deputy Minister of Industry and New Technologies, Bakhtiyor Sharifi, noted that the Chinese company had already begun developing the Duoba and Upper Kumargh goldfields located in the Ayni district of Sughd province.
According to him, all gold mined by the Chinese company will be sold to the Ministry of Finance of Tajikistan.
“Some 700 Tajiks are working at these goldfields, which is more than 80 percent of workers working at the goldfields,” Tajik official noted.
Recall, Tajik government granted licenses to develop two gold deposits in the country to TBEA in exchange for construction of a new combined heat and power (CHP) plant in Dushanbe.
Work on that 400-megawatt CHP plant was completed in December 2016 at a total cost of $349 million. Of that overall budget, around $17.4 million were provided by the Tajik government.
TBEA will work on the gold deposits as long as it takes to recoup its outlay. Afterward, the company plans to reach new deals on the management of these mines, but on different terms
The license for development of the Upper Kumargh gold deposit was granted to TBEA at the beginning of last year and the license for development of the Duoba gold deposit had been granted to TBEA earlier.
A total area of Duoba and Upper Kumarg deposits 15,400 square kilometers. The deposits reportedly contain proven gold reserves of around 51.7 tons and possibly up to 117.6 tons in total.
Xinjiang Tebian Electric Apparatus Stock Co. Ltd (TBEA) is one of the largest electrical manufacturing groups in China and the first floated stock company in Chinese A Shore Market in transmission industry of China after merging the former Hengyang Transformer Works (a large-size stated company founded in 1958 and located in Hunan province, China), and well-known for manufacturing all kinds of high voltage power transmission, transformation and distribution equipment. Under the administration of TBEA, there are 10 large backbone factories, 5 research institutes, 6 business entities and 8 participated enterprises.
