| March 20-March 27, 1999 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Japan to provide loan to Uzbekistan
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Japan will provide a loan
of 12.7 billion yen
(105,800,000 dollars) to implement projects in the
telecommunication field and
a financial aid of 470,000,000 yen (almost 4,000,000
dollars) to purchase
medical equipment.
Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi said about the loan
during his meeting
with his Uzbek counterpart Utkir Sultanov here on
Wednesday.
Later in the day, the visiting Uzbek premier had talks
with Japanese Foreign
Minister Masahiko Komura, when the parties exchanged
notes on Japanese aid
to Uzbekistan, that will be spend to purchase equipment
for Uzbek maternity
homes and hospitals for children.
Japan gave its first loan of 12.7 billion yen for
communication systems in
Uzbekistan in 1995. Another loan of six billion yen was
provided to Uzbekistan
in the next year to build a passenger train repair
enterprise.
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Over 1,500 CIS pilgrims to visit Saudi Arabia
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Over 1,500 pilgrims from the CIS
member-countries can take part in a hadj in Saudi Arabia which starts next
week.
The last group of 110 Ukrainian pilgrims joined 1,400 Muslims from Russia,
Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan on Sunday. The 350 pilgrims from
Russia came to Mecca on Saturday, the rest will come on Sunday evening.
King Fahd of Saudi Arabia will cover their travelling expenses and the
two-week stay in the Kingdom, the Saudi Arabian SPA news agency reports.
The spending of every pilgrim making a hadj to Mecca and Medina is
8,000-10,000 dollars. |
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UK's Oxus said planning to invest in Uzbek gold
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Britain's Oxus Resources Corp has
completed a pre-feasibility study of two goldfields in ex-Soviet Uzbekistan and
plans to make staged investments in the $200 million project, a senior Uzbek
official said on Tuesday.
"Oxus has completed the preliminary feasibility study into restructuring the
Amantaitau Goldfields joint venture set up in 1995," said Alexander Ogarkov,
head geologist at the State Geology and Mineral Resources Committee.
He said combined estimated gold reserves at the Amantaitau and Daugyztau
fields was more than 300 tonnes.
They were initially to have been developed by Britain's Lonrho Plc and Canada's
Cameco Corp . Both pulled out due to the fall in world gold prices.
Oxus has proposed investing $46 million of its own money in the first stage of
the development, which would involve heap leach processing of around two
million tonnes of oxidised ore a year.
The second phase, which would cost an estimated $150 million, would involve
processing a further 2.3 million tonnes of ore annually. Financing for that phase
would come from commercial loans, Ogarkov said.
He added that Oxus could begin working on the long-delayed project at the end
of this year or early in 2000. He said other foreign investors might also
participate, but gave no further details.
Uzbekistan, an impoverished but resource-rich Central Asian state of 24 million,
relies heavily on gold output and exports for foreign currency reserves.
Investment prospects in the industry were hit by the fall in gold values and
doubts over Uzbekistan's commitment to open market reform.
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Uzbek Prime Minister to visit Japan
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Prime Minister of Uzbekistan Utkur Sultanov is leaving for
a five-day working visit to Japan where he will take part in the work of the
Japanese-Uzbek bilateral economic committee. The Committee, which is
co-chaired by the Uzbek head of government, meets every year alternately in
one or the other of the two countries to discuss problems in cooperation
between Japan and Uzbekistan, investment and production projects. This time
around, the Uzbek prime minister intends to discuss Uzbek exports to Japan and
analyze the state of, and prospects for the development off trade and economic
relations between the two countries. |
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