New mining and beneficiation plant to appear in Turkmenistan

ASHGABAD, June 19 (Itar-Tass) - The presidents of Belarus and
Turkmenistan, Alexander Lukashenko and Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, will
attend on Friday the cornerstone-laying ceremony on the site of the future
mining and beneficiation complex, which is to be built in the eastern part
of Turkmenistan. "This is a large-scale joint project, which promises to
eventually win many important customers in third countries," the Turkmen
leader stated during the Thursday talks with his Belarus counterpart, held
within the framework of the latter's official visit to Ashgabat. The
results they yielded include a framework agreement to build a mining and
beneficiation complex to produce potassium fertilisers.
The presidents of the two countries will go to the republic's Lebap
Vilayat (Region), where the Garlyk deposit of potassium salts is located.
Central Asia's biggest mining and beneficiation complex will be built
there to produce potassium fertilisers. It will have an annual output
capacity of 1.4 million tons. The Belarus "Belgorkhimprom" company had
won the tender to build it and is now the key partner in this project.
Lukashenko noted in the course of the Ashgabat negotiations that this
project would be very helpful to Belarus economy during the current global
financial and economic crisis. The building of the first mining and
beneficiation complex means that the republic will get a new sector of
economy, allowing us to produce our own potassium fertilisers, ridding us
of the need to import them, and will open up new vistas for their export
to other countries, President Berdymukhammedov stated.
-0-kli