Uzbekistan will commence works on the trans-Afghan railway project in the spring of 2022, the Sputnik Afghanistan reported on Sunday.
Ilkhom Makhkamov, Minister of Transport of Uzbekistan promise to Amir Khan Muttaqi, acting Foreign Minister of the Taliban government in Islamabad. Also, Tashkent intends to train Afghan railways specialists.
The Uzbek delegation, which included the special representative Ismatulla Irgashev invited Amir Khan Muttaqi to visit Tashkent, which he reportedly accepted.
According to the estimates of Uzbek authorities, the Mazar-e-Sharif-Kabul-Peshawar railway project will help to significantly reduce the goods delivery timelines to Central Asia, the CIS and Europe.
With the full implementation of the project, the transportation of goods from Pakistan to Uzbekistan will take not 35, but 3-5 days, and the cost of transporting one 20-foot container can be reduced almost three times, he said. At the same time, according to forecasts, the volume of cargo transportation along this route may reach 10 million tons.
