DUSHANBE, October 20, 2009, Asia-Plus -- More than 90 percent of construction work of the second phase of the Shagon-Zighar road construction project has been done to this date, the project implementation unit director Ismonqul Shoqulov said in an interview with Asia-Plus.

The project is implemented with help of specialists from Iran’s construction company, Sabir International.  The second phase includes construction of 11 kilometers of the road; they have constructed 9.75 kilometers and some 62 percent (9.86 million U.S. dollars) of funds allocated for the second phase have been spent, Shoqulov said.  According to him, 180 workers, with 86 percent of them being Tajik nationals, are involved in the project.

“The second phase of the project is scheduled to be finished until December this year and the third phase, including construction of 35 kilometers of the road, will be launched at the beginning of the next year,” the director said.

Shoqulov added that a loan agreement between the Government of Tajikistan and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) would be signed this year and after that, a tender would be announced for implementation of the third phase of the project.

The second and the third phases of the project are aimed at rehabilitation of the road from Guldara to Zighar and bringing this section of the road into compliance with international standards.  The estimated budget for implementation of these stages is 32 million U.S. dollars.  87 percent of this amount is provided by the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) and the remainder is contribution of the Tajik government.

Some 15.9 million dollars have been allocated for the second phase that was launched in November 2008.

The Shagon-Zighar road construction project is expected to be finished in 2010.  This road is part of the highway from Dushanbe via Kulob, Darvoz, and Khorog to the Kulma Pass on the Tajik-Chinese border in Gorno Badakhshan.  This highway links Tajikistan to an international road, the Karakoram Highway.

The Karakoram Highway (KKH) is the highest paved international road in the world.  It connects China and Pakistan across the Karakoram mountain range, through the Khunjerab Pass.

The highway, connecting Gilgit-Baltistan of Pakistan to the ancient Silk Road, runs approximately 1,300 kilometers from Kashgar, a city in the Xinjiang region of China, to Islamabad, located in the Chilas District of Pakistan.   An extension of the highway meets the Grand Trunk Road at Hassanabdal, near Islamabad, Pakistan.