DUSHANBE (Avesta news agency) — The ceremony of signing a ¥1.976 bln (about $17.5 mln) contract between Barki Tojik and the Japanese company Nishizawa in the amount of was held at the end of last week in Dushanbe.

According to the representative office of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in Tajikistan, this contract will be implemented within the framework of the grant project Improvement of Substations in Dushanbe City, financed by JICA. As the head of JICA representative office in Tajikistan, Mr. Hideki Tanabe, said that according to the terms of the contract, Nishizawa undertakes in the next two years in the Ismoili Somoni district the construction of a new electric substation named “Radio station” (landmark: “Amphitheatre”), and also to rehabilitate and to increase the capacity of the electrical substation Promyshlennaya located in the Sino area (reference point: the Farovon market).

It should be noted that the main electric power equipment (transformers, switchgears, etc.) for these substations will be produced by the Toshiba.

It is expected that the completion of the above construction and repair works will make a significant contribution to improving the stable and efficient supply of energy to the population, industrial sector and social facilities in Dushanbe. Also, the number of interruptions in power supply that would appear due to overloads of functioning transformers in the areas of Sino and I. Somoni will be reduced.

JICA began its technical cooperation with Tajikistan in 1993 by inviting government officials from Tajikistan to study in Japan to gain knowledge and experience in good governance and macroeconomic development. As of the beginning of 2018, the total number of participants in the JICA Knowledge Building Program, formerly called the Training Course, has exceeded more than 2,100 people.

In 2006, the JICA office was opened in Tajikistan, and since that time various grant and technical assistance projects have been dynamically implemented in such sectors as agriculture and rural development, drinking water supply, healthcare, transport energy, capacity building, etc.

Currently, JICA’s project portfolio in Tajikistan is 33 projects totalling more than $341 mln ($82 mln of technical assistance and $259 mln of grant assistance), of which 12 projects are operational.