Turkmen President Serdar Berdimuhamedov received Pakistani Minister of State for Petroleum Musadik Masood Malik to discuss cooperation in the trade and economic sphere, including the construction of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline, Neytralny Turkmenistan reported on Wednesday.
The newspaper noted that the most important component of the Turkmen-Pakistani cooperation is the cooperation in the strategic fuel and energy sector. "In this context, special importance is given to the implementation of the project of building the transnational gas pipeline Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India," the newspaper notes. According to it, the projects on laying power lines and fiber-optic communications on the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan route are also of great importance. The implementation of these large-scale projects in the energy and communications sectors is to promote sustainable socio-economic development of the entire region, its successful integration into the system of world economic relations, strengthening of regional peace and stability, the newspaper said.
The TAPI project, involving Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, and Turkmenistan, has been implemented since 2015. Its cost is $10 billion. The pipeline will connect energy-rich Central Asia with the energy-starved countries of South Asia. According to the project, up to 33 billion cubic meters of gas will be transported annually from Galkynysh gas field in Turkmenistan to the city of Fazilka in the Indian state of Punjab through a 1,814 km pipeline that runs through Afghanistan and Pakistan.
GSV "Russia - Islamic world"
Photo: official website of the President of the Russian Federation
Based on materials from TASS