Turkmenistan to extend electricity supplies to Afghanistan

Turkmenistan will extend electricity supplies to Afghanistan, the Neutral Turkmenistan newspaper reported.

In particular, the state electricity corporation Turkmenenergo is allowed to conclude an agreement to extend the contracts concluded with the Afghan company Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat. The company is also allowed to set the volume and price of electricity supplied.

This decree was signed by Turkmen President Serdar Berdymukhamedov. For many years Turkmenistan has been providing electricity to Afghanistan.

This comes as electricity outages in Afghanistan have increased in recent weeks.

“Every winter, we face lack of electricity and it greatly affects us,” said Mohamad Kazim Saiqal, a resident of Herat.

The import of around 80 percent of Afghanistan’s grid-supplied electricity comes from neighboring Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Iran and Turkmenistan.

Experts say Afghanistan has enough natural resources to become self-reliant on electricity and even export it.

“We can develop the 10 hydropower dams that exist. We can build new dams,” said Sayed Massoud, an expert on economic affairs.