TAPI gas pipeline project to be inaugurated in Mary today

DECEMBER 13, 2015 | EDIT

Dec 13,

Vice-President Mohammed Hamid Ansari is to attend the ground-breaking ceremony of the ambitious USD 10 billion Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project today in Mary, Turkmenistan. Mr. Ansari who is currently visiting Turkmenistan, will also speak at the ceremony along with the heads of delegations of the TAPI project.

The vice president welcomed the TAPI gas pipeline project, saying they saw it as a key pillar of economic engagement between South and Central Asia. Conceived in the 1990s, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan signed a framework agreement to implement the ambitious project after a meeting in Islamabad in 2002 and the preliminary feasibility studies were done by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

The Indian Government requested the ADB for joining the project as an official member in 2006. The project is expected to be completed by December 2018. Calling it one of ‘those great ideas in regional cooperation about which we have dreamt of’, vice-president Ansari said that he was very optimistic that after the ground breaking ceremony, things will begin to roll.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow would attend the ground-breaking ceremony which will be held near the city of Mary.