Tajikistan and Afghanistan have signed a government-to-government agreement on construction of a rail link connecting the two countries. This railway will give Tajikistan a prospective of accessing seaports.
An agreement on construction of the Balkhi-Jaihoun-Panji Pyon-Sher Khan Bandar (Afghanistan) railway was signed in Dushanbe on December 30, 2019. The document was inked by Mr. Khudoyor Khudoyorzoda, Minister of Transport of Tajikistan, and Mr. Mohammad Yamma Shams, Director-General and CEO of the Afghanistan Railway Authority.
An agreement on preparation of this document was reached in July last year during a meeting of the Tajik-Afghan joint commission for trade and economic cooperation.
A multination rail link was planned between Tajikistan and Afghanistan in 2013. In 2018 a 50-kilometer extension from Balkhi (formerly Kolkhozobod) in Tajikistan to the border town of Sher Khan Bandar in Afghanistan’s Kunduz Province was approved.
Specialists from the Ministry of Transport (MoT) say this agreement is of strategic significance as it provides grounds for implementation of the projects aiming at construction of Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan railway and China-Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan-Afghanistan-Iran railway with a perspective of accessing the Iranian seaports of Bandar Abbas and Chabahar and the Pakistani seaport of Gwadar.
MoT officials have reportedly held meetings with representatives of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to discuss issues related to financing the feasibility study for construction of the Balkhi-Jaihoun-Panji Pyon-Sher Khan Bandar railway.
