Afghanistan Launches Construction of Important Section of Railway Corridor from Turkmenistan to Tajikistan
On July 25, Aqina Station in Afghanistan’s Faryab province will celebrate the official opening of a 10-kilometer railway line. After that, a groundbreaking ceremony will be held to formally launch construction of a line to the city of Andkhoy. An ORIENT correspondent went there with a group of journalists. The Aqina-Andkhoy railway is part of the under-construction Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan Transport Corridor. During the first phase of the project, the 85-kilometer Kerki-Imamnazar railway was built in Turkmenistan, later it was extended further to Aqina Station in Afghanistan. The new line is expected to revive Afghanistan’s economy and to help domestically-produced goods to reach international markets. It will also allow Afghan producers to increase deliveries of nuts, fruits, marble, lazurite, jewels, semi-precious stones, and other minerals, which are in abundance in the country. The transport corridor will facilitate the development of raw material deposits. Feasibility studies for the Tajik section of the Tajikistan-Afghanistan-Turkmenistan railway project will be completed by the end of the year.
