DUSHANBE, December 8, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- A Tajik-Kazakh joint investment fund will start operations in Tajikistan in the near future, Kazakh Ambassador to Tajikistan, Abutalip Akhmetov, told reporters in Dushanbe today.

According to him, the process of transferring money to the fund that will be based in the Tajik capital has practically been solved.

Kazakh diplomat noted that the fund had authorized capital of 100 million U.S. dollars and Kazakhstan provided 80 percent of the money for the fund.

“The sides are currently solving organizing issues,” Akhmetov said, noting that the fund would invest in projects in Tajikistan.

He added that the interest rates for loans that would be provided by the fund had not yet been determined.  “This issue will be solved in the course of work,” Ambassador Akhmetov said.

We will recall that the sides agreed to set up a joint investment fund of US$100 million that will be used to invest in projects in Tajikistan during Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s visit to Tajikistan in September 2007.  It was noted that the fund would give priority to the economic areas that were of interest to both countries: electric power generation, agriculture, the mining industry, and other important spheres of the economy.

An agreement on establishment of the Tajik-Kazakh joint investment fund was signed during President Rahmon’s visit to Kazakhstan in May 2008.