KABUL - A two-day meeting began in Kabul on Saturday to prioritize major trans-regional projects to be discussed at the 7th Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (RECCA-VII) in November in Turkmenistan.
Afghan officials and representatives from foreign countries and international organizations attended the first day of the two-day meeting in Kabul.
Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) officials say RECCA established in 2005 is a programme spearheaded by Afghanistan and is aimed at attracting regional economic cooperation for the war-torn country.
RECCA conferences are usually attended by high-ranking delegations from about 30 countries, representatives from 40 international and regional institutions and Afghan authorities.
RECCA’s first six conferences were respectively hosted by Kabul, New Delhi, Islamabad, Istanbul and Dushanbe.
The next RECCA conference is scheduled to be held in mid-November in Ashgabat, the Turkmen capital.
Adila Raaz, deputy economy chief at MoFA, told the meeting RECCA was Afghanistan-centered programme and was an effective mechanism for regional economical and business cooperation.
She said RECCA projects also had benefits for regional countries and that raised optimism about the success of RECCA’s projects.
She said high-level Afghan government officials, ambassadors, and representatives from various countries and international organizations participated in today’s meeting to mull over projects that had primacy for Afghanistan and the region.
Raaz said there were a total of more than 30 projects, but the meeting participants would choose in the next two days projects that were to be prioritized.
Railways tracks projects among Afghanistan, China, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, the Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India Pipeline (TAPI), the Central Asia-South Asia power project (CASA-1000), and 500 KW power transmission line of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan (TUTAP) are some of the national and regional projects topping the Afghan government’s priority list.
The RECCA-VII in Turkmenistan would focus on energy, digitalization, roads construction, transit and trade related projects, which had a vital role for Afghanistan and the region, she concluded. (Pajhwok)