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Mongolia, other nations, reassured by work done in Tajikistan on Silk Road project |
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Wednesday, 12 December 2007 |
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While Mongolia and other Asian
countries have begun work on building a new Silk Road to allow road
and rail traffic to reach from Asia to Europe, other former Soviet states
have only begun infrastructure projects to make the project a reality.
However, slow-moving Tajikistan
is now finishing construction of a bridge which will provide a vital
link on the road linking Kyrgyzstan to the rest of Asia. The bridge
is located about 150km north of Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan.
This news comes following the
signing of an $18.7 billion pact last month by Mongolia and seven other
countries to build the road and rail connections.
The pact is seen as a political
breakthrough in the rarely unified region, bringing together the central
Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan
with their eastern neighbors including Mongolia and China.
Officials have been quick to
point out that even though the European Union overtook the US this year
as the main destination for Chinese goods, less than 1 per cent of the
$1,000bn-plus trade between Europe and Asia passes through central Asia.
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