DUSHANBE, January 8, Asia-Plus -- Tajikistan’s Railways seeks investors for rehabilitation of the country’s railways and modernization of the its rolling-stock. 

Tajik Railways jointly with the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC) has worked up an investment project that has been submitted for consideration to Japan, according to MoTC.

A source at a MoTC said that a total project cost is $198.4 million.  The project, designed for 10 years, consists of three components. 

The first component, costing $28.4 million includes major repairs and purchase of equipment for repairing the railways, as well as improvement of services offered to passengers.

The second component includes purchase of 10 main and five shunting locomotives.  This component costs $60 million.  At present Tajikistan has 34 main and 23 shunting locomotives.  Of them, 32 main and 13 shunting locomotives outlived their service life in 2005 already.     

The third component, costing $110 million, includes purchase 2,000 cargo cars.  Tajik Railways officials say that at present the price of a cargo car fluctuates from US $52,000 to US $57,000.   Last year, the Tajik rail company could afford to purchase only four cargo carriages. 

Tajikistan’s rolling-stock includes 1,766 cargo cars, 314 passenger carriages and 57 diesel locomotives.    

 The total length of rails in Tajikistan is 950 kilometers; of that, 680 kilometers are the main railways.  At present there are 31 railway stations in the republic.  10,000 people work for Tajik Railways at an average monthly wage of 298 somonis.