China-Europe road project interests firm |
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Wed, 24 Jan 2007 13:48
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ALMATY, Kazakhstan (AFX) - A major Chinese company has expressed interest in a project to create a road linking eastern China with European Russia via Central Asia, Kazakhstan's Transport Ministry said Wednesday.Officials from China Road and Bridge Corporation said Tuesday during talks with Kazakh government officials that they were ready to join the East-West transport project worth an estimated US$2.3 billion (euro1.7 billion), the ministry said in a statement.The 8,445-kilometer (5,300-mile) transport corridor is designed to go from the eastern Chinese port city of Lianyungang through China's northwestern Xinjiang province, the southern Kazakh cities of Almaty and Shymkent and the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, then across western and northern Kazakhstan and on to St. Petersburg, which is Russia's second largest city and a major Baltic Sea port, the statement said.The project, which is at a negotiation stage, would allow the vast oil-rich Central Asian nation to profit from transit fees and give a boost to its transport infrastructure, said Transport Ministry spokesman Qairbek Saudakasov. It would involve reconstruction of some 2,300 kilometers (1,430 miles) of existing roads in Kazakhstan, he said.Russia has been lobbying for an alternate route that would bypass Central Asia and go from the Chinese city of Harbin to St. Petersburg across Siberia, Saudakasov said.Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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