TASHKENT (TCA) — President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev on December 25 held a meeting to discuss the attraction and effective use of grant funds from foreign countries, international organizations and foundations, the President’s official website reported.

Earlier this year, the Ministry of Investments and Foreign Trade was appointed as the authorized body for coordinating and monitoring the work with foreign grants and donors.

It was said at the meeting that a total of 160 projects are currently being implemented in Uzbekistan through grants in the amount of 667 million US dollars. However, there is no mechanism for monitoring the realization of these projects, for evaluating the effectiveness of development and scrutiny of the targeted use of funds. The facilities and equipment put into operation through grants and the experience harnessed in the framework of projects are used inefficiently. Grants attracted into such areas as science, innovation, and ecology are considered insufficient.

The President outlined tasks to attract new grants into each priority sphere and industry. The Ministry of Investments and Foreign Trade as well as the Ministry of Finance were instructed to institute a new system for assessing the effectiveness of schemes implemented through grants.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Investments and Foreign Trade have been tasked with building up ties with international donor organizations.

The Ministries of Healthcare, Higher and Secondary Special Education, Agriculture, and the State Committee for Ecology and Environmental Protection were advised of the need to develop roadmaps for attracting grants in 2020, directing the funds raised to priority goals and specific projects.

For instance, in healthcare, the possibility was noted of attracting funds from the World Health Organization, JICA, KOICA and other organizations to such areas as oncology, child and socially considerable diseases, and the establishment of laboratories.

Instructions were given on enhancing the attraction of grants to the UN Multi-Partner Human Security Trust Fund for the Aral Sea Region.

President Mirziyoyev also underscored the importance of intensifying the efforts to attract foreign specialists and volunteers in the framework of free aid, establish constant dialogue with them and cash in their experience.

NUR-SULTAN (TCA) — Kazakhstan’s Prime Minister Askar Mamin made a working trip to the country’s Zhambyl province on December 26. In the city of Zhanatas, in Sarysu district, in the presence of the head of government, the Kazakh Ministry of Industry and Infrastructure Development, the Akimat (administration) of Zhambyl province and EuroChem MCC JSC, one of the world’s leading producers of mineral fertilizers, signed an investment agreement on the construction and operation of a plant for the production of mineral fertilizers, the prime minister’s press service reported.

The volume of investments in the project will be about US $1 billion, the plant’s capacity will be one million tons of fertilizers per year. The resource base will be the deposits of the phosphorite basin of the Karatau in Kazakhstan. The plant’s production technology will produce high-quality phosphate and complex fertilizers with minimal environmental impact — without phosphogypsum waste.

About 120 thousand tons of calcium chloride and at least 400 thousand tons of gypsum dihydrate per year will be produced by the new plant, which will meet the needs of the road, oil and gas, construction and agricultural industries.

The plant is scheduled to be commissioned in 2021, and about 2,000 new jobs will be created.

NUR-SULTAN (TCA) — The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Kazakhstan will be joining efforts with the Bitfury Group, a leading emerging technologies company, to preserve and replenish large swathes of forest land across Kazakhstan, UNDP in Kazakhstan said on its website.

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DUSHANBE (TCA) — In his annual address to the Parliament of Tajikistan on December 26, President Emomali Rahmon tasked the Tajik Government to ensure the country’s economic growth at 7-8 percent during the next seven years, Avesta news agency reported.

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KABUL (TCA) — The department of agriculture in Afghanistan’s Helmand province says they have begun to develop pistachio gardens as an alternative to poppy cultivation in the region, and so far the plan is working well, Afghan broadcaster TOLOnews reported.

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DUSHANBE (TCA) — A government-owned weekly Tajik newspaper published its latest edition on December 24 with a blank front page in protest of not having the ability to access “objective information” because local officials refuse to speak to or inform journalists, RFE/RL’s Tajik Service reported.

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