Afghanistan sees ‘economic revolution’ with first railway
AFGHANISTAN: Afg-han- istan has launched what it says is a
revolutionary project that could revive the poverty-stricken,
war-ravaged, landlocked country’s status as a thriving “silk road” trade
hub.
In the harsh desert heat on the northern border with Uzbekistan,
workers are hammering down the tracks of Afghanistan’s first railway,
being built with a grant of 165 million dollars from the Asian
Development Bank (ADB).
The first section of 75 kilometres (50 miles) will link the northern
Afghan city of Mazar-I-Sharif to the Uzbek border, where the Friendship
Bridge crosses the Amu River into the vast expanses of the former Soviet
states and beyond.
The line, being built by Uzbekistan’s state-owned rail corporation,
is due to be completed in September, the first section of a network that
officials hope will facilitate trade and link Afghanistan to
international seaports.
“This is an historic day, it’s the beginning of a vital project for
Afghanistan and the region,” Finance Minister Omar Zakhailwal told
officials and diplomats at an inauguration ceremony last week.
“This railroad will spark an economic revolution not only in
Afghanistan but across the region,” he said, after flying into the
border town of Hairatan by helicopter.
The project aims to open up the agricultural, textile and mineral
wealth of Afghanistan — which borders Pakistan, China, Tajikistan,
Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Iran — to export markets from Asia to
Europe. “I think it’s a very, very important project,” said Sayed Masoud,
an economist at Kabul University.
“It gains us credibility among our neighbours and makes our country a
stable transit hub in the regional trade between Pakistan and the
Central Asian countries and China,” he told AFP.
Future plans to open up the country with rail include a line from
Mazar-I-Sharif to Herat, the eastern city close to the border with Iran,
to connect with a track being built from the other side.
Mazar-I-Sharif was once an important caravan stop on the ancient
“silk road” which connected China to the world.
But a series of wars and the thwarting of British imperial overtures
saw Afghanistan — long at the vortex of geopolitical games — miss out on
the railway boom that colonisers brought to its neighbours.
Hairatan, Sunday, AFP |