(MENAFN- Trend News Agency) TBILISI, Georgia, May 6. The Asian DevelopmentBank (ADB) is keen to participate in Black Sea Cable project, if itproves feasible, ADB Director General for Central and Western AsiaEugenue Zhukov said in an exclusive interview with Trend on the sidelines of the ADB annualmeeting in Tbilisi.
ADB director general noted that the Bank is a keen supporter ofregional cooperation, because it is probably one of the few MDBswhere the regional cooperation is mandated in its charterdocuments.
“In the case of Central Asia and Caucasus, in early 2000s weestablished Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation Program(CAREC). Since that time, total investments in regionalcooperation, including connectivity, have exceeded $50 billion is of course ongoing study on the Black Sea cable, going fromAzerbaijan to Georgia, from Black Sea to Romania and the rest ofthe European Union. Feasibility study ongoing now. We hope that itis preliminary finished by mid or end of this year. So if the studydemonstrates that the project is feasible, we are very keen toparticipate in that. I think it is a very large project and if itis going to happen, I think there will be room for many IFIs toparticipate. Then if we look to the east, indeed we saw that a fewdays ago in Tashkent, the governments of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan andAzerbaijan signed a preliminary MoU on the possible underwatercable crossing the Caspian Sea from Uzbekistan to Kazakhstan and toAzerbaijan on the so-called green energy corridor. Uzbekistan hasbeen investing quite a lot to produce renewable energy, solar andwind, in the western parts of the country, while most of theeconomic base is actually in east of Uzbekistan. We think thatthese projects have potential to produce green energy, which thencan be supplied for this proposed green corridor, but we believethat a lot of investments will be needed for this to happen,” hesaid.
On December 17, 2022, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania, and Hungarysigned a strategic partnership agreement that provides for theconstruction of an energy bridge from the Caucasus region toEurope.
As per the agreement, a 1,000 MW Black Sea Energy submarineelectric cable spanning 1,195 kilometers is set to be constructed cable is intended to transmit 'green' electricity generated inAzerbaijan, routed through Georgia and the Black Sea to Romania,and further distributed to Hungary and the rest of Europe. Thisinfrastructure will facilitate the supply of up to four gigawattsof green energy.
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