DUSHANBE, April 4, 2014, Asia-Plus – Tajik President Emomali Rahmon yesterday attended groundbreaking ceremonies for construction of two large industrial enterprises in the Tajik northern city of Istiqlol (formerly Taboshar).

The Tajik president’s official website reports that a metallurgical plant of Tajik-Chinese Mining Company LLC and a cement plant Chzhungtsai-Tabosahrcement will be constructed in Istiqlol.

An estimated budget for construction of these facilities is 500 million U.S. dollars and they will create 2,500 new jobs.  Tajik nationals will constitute 90 percent of workers at these enterprises.

Processing capacity of the metallurgical plant will be 50,000 tons of lead and 50,000 tons of zinc per year, the president’s website said, noting that the part of the plant for processing lead ore will be introduced into operation in 2016 and the part of the plant for processing zinc ore will be introduced into operation in 2017.

Besides, enterprises for manufacturing cement, mineral fertilizers and sulfate acid that will work on waste products of this plant will be built in the future.

The cement plant Chzhungtsai-Tabosahrcement with capacity of producing 600,000 tons of cement per year is expected to be completed next year