DUSHANBE, January 18, Asia-Plus  -- Work on exploring gold reserves of the Pokroud deposit, located in the upper reaches of the Kofarnihon River in the Vahdat district, is expected to be finished in the middle of this year, Rahmonbek Bakhtdavlatov, the first deputy head of Tajikistan’s Main Geology Directorate, said in an interview with Asia-Plus.

According to him, exploration survey there has been conducted since April 2004, and the Tajik-British Joint Venture Pokroud has to date invested some 4 million US dollars in this work.  In all, they plan to invest $5 million in the exploration survey of the deposit.

Mr. Bakhtdavlatov noted that the Pokroud deposit has possible gold reserves of 25-30 tons.