DUSHANBE, September 24, 2008, Asia-Plus -- On Tuesday September 23, President Emomali Rahmon held talks with the World Bank (WB) President, Mr. Robert Zoellick, in New York on sidelines of the 63rd session of the UN General Assembly, according to presidential press service.

During the meeting, President Rahmon expressed satisfaction with the present level of cooperation between Tajikistan and the World Bank and noted that the sides still have many unused resources for expansion of cooperation.

For his part, Mr. Zoellick noted that the Bank is well aware of energy problems facing Tajikistan and ready to expand its cooperation with Tajikistan in all directions, including development of its energy resources, the press service said.

In the course of the talks, the two also discussed issues related to creation of international consortium to complete construction of the Roghun hydroelectric power station (HPS) in Tajikistan, attraction of investment in designing and constructing the Sanobod HPS in Gorno Badakhshan as well as other problems being of mutual interest.

A special attention was paid to the cotton sector debt problems, improvement of investment climate in Tajikistan and expansion of regional cooperation in Central Asia.

Rahmon and Zoellick also exchanged views on the Casa (Central Asia-South Asia) 1000 project aimed at supplying 1000 MW electricity from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan via Afghanistan to Pakistan.   

We will recall that the CASAREM (Central Asia/South Asia Regional Electricity Market) conference that was held in Islamabad on August 3-4 ended with signing of an agreement to implement a US$500 million electricity connection between Central Asia and South Asia.  In its first stage, the project would transfer around 1300 Megawatts of electricity from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to Pakistan and Afghanistan.