News
Japan and Kazakhstan signed a loan agreement on Tuesday to reconstruct a 21 km stretch in Zhambyl State of the new South West Roads Project known as Western Europe-Western China International Transit Corridor linking Europe and China.
The 6,610 million yen loan was signed by Kazakhstan Foreign Minister Kanat Saudabayev and Katsuya Okada, the Foreign Minister of Japan, at a ceremony in Astana, the capital the Kazakhstan.
The improved road will reduce travel time 40 percent by 2015, while cutting freight transport costs by half. It will also improve road safety.
The loan will be implemented within the framework of the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) Program which finances the reconstruction of 470 km of road in Kazakhstan's Zhambyl Oblast, an area some 400 km southwest of Almaty.
