Thursday, August 18, 2011 -
Uzbekistan is set to receive $155 million in loans from South Korea to support economic and social development in the Central Asian staet, the KyrTAG news agency reported Thursday.
According to the Uzbek Finance Ministry, the South Korean Economic Cooperation Development Fund (EDCF) is preparing to extend the financing to the Tashkent government with a number of loans to the end of 2012.
"The fund plans to expand the amount provided funding to Uzbekistan [for] projects in the areas of drinking water, health, information systems," kyrtag.kg reported the ministry as saying.
Discussions on allocation of the loans will also form part of the agenda of talks between Uzbek President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov and his South Korean counterpart Lee Myung-bak during a state meeting in Tashkent scheduled for August 23-24.
The South Korean fund has slated $80 million to upgrade water supplies in the Uzbek regions of Namangan, Samarkand, and Surkhandarya later this year.
Another EDCF loan of $15 million will go to setting up a geographic information system (GIS) allowing the government to model and map its territory. The data can be used by business, science, education and government.
Uzbekistan to date has received around $120 million in soft loans from EDCF for it telecoms, education and social services.