DUSHANBE (Avesta, RIA Novosti) – Construction of a cement production plant with the capacity of 1 million tonnes per year started in the south of Tajikistan in the Java region of Khatlon, informed the Ministry of Energy and Industry of the Republic of Tajikistan.

This joint venture named Huaksin-Gayurtsement is create the Tajik enterprise Gayur and a Chinese firm, Aisha Huaksin Central Investment. The project cost is estimated US $100 million.

Gayur was established in 2006 and has three production halls to produce bricks, cement and lime. Production capacity of the company amounts to 2.5 thousand tons of cement and 280 thousand brick and 300 tons of lime per month. The Chinese firm Huaksin Central Eisha Investment (Wuhan City) is an investment firm which invests in cement plants and occupies the main place in China in terms of production and sale of cement.

Unable to produce enough cement to meet its needs, Tajikistan has been importing cement, mostly from Pakistan and Iran, followed at a long distance by Russia and Kyrgyzstan. According to the national statistics office, the country imports about 400,000 tons of cement annually. In practice, the imports are likely to be higher. The Tajik authorities expect that the newly built and renovated plants will soon turn Tajikistan into a net exporter of cement. However, it is unclear where Dushanbe plans to export its surplus cement in the future as its neighbours in the region, including China, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, produce much more cement than needed for domestic consumption and compete for larger shares of the regional cement market.

In January 2011, Tehran’s embassy in Dushanbe announced that an Iranian company will invest about $300 million in building two cement plants in Tajikistan. When completed, the new coal-driven plants are expected to produce two million metric tons of cement a year. According to the embassy, Iran is now choosing from four sites in in Nosir Khusrav district with large limestone reserves, which have been proposed by the Tajik government, to decide where to build the plants.