Tajik Leader Intends to Hold Discussion With Russia on Hydropower Projects

Text of report by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS

Dushanbe, 9 June: Tajik President Emomali Rahmon intends to discuss Russia’s participation in Tajikistan’s hydropower projects at the informal CIS summit, the Tajik president’s press service has said.

A high ranking source with the Tajik government has said that there will be discussion of “Russia’s participation in major hydropower projects in Tajikistan, first of all, the Roghun hydroelectric power station, the preliminary cost of which, according to the World Bank’s estimate, is 2.5bn dollars”.

The source said that the RAO YeES [Unified Energy System] of Russia was participating in the construction of the Sangtuda -1 hydroelectric power station, and that Gazprom had received a licence to develop two large gas fields in the southeast and west of Tajikistan.

(c) 2007 BBC Monitoring Central Asia. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.