China Eximbank provides $8.36 million government concessional loan for Safe City Project (Linked to Project ID#71411)

On May 20, 2013, the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Tajikistan signed two loan agreements with the Export-Import Bank of China for the Safe City Project: a RMB-denominated government concessional loan (GCL) provided on highly concessional terms (20-year maturity, 11-year grace period, and 1.5% interest rate) and a preferential buyer’s credit (PBC) loan on highly concessional terms (2% interest, 20-year maturity, 9-year grace period). The precise face value of the GCL loan and the precise face value of the PBC loan are unknown. However, it is known that the GCL and PBC are jointly worth $20.9 million USD, and that 40% of the total debt financing from China Eximbank ($8.36 million) came from the RMB-denominated GCL and 60% of the total debt financing from China Eximbank ($12.54 million) came from the USD-denominated PBC (AidData learned this through correspondence with the IMF, see "Following Up" resource). Project ID#46215 records the GCL and project ID#71411 records the PBC. The loans were ratified by the Tajik Parliament in June 2013 and were expected to be repaid with revenues from the traffic fines generated by this project. The total cost of the project was $22 million USD. In addition to the Chinese loans, the Government of Tajikistan contributed $1.1 million USD. According to Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Tajikistan, the Safe City Project involved the installation of 855 CCTV cameras for round-the-clock monitoring of traffic and other movements at 75 crossroads, streets, and squares in the capital city of Dushanbe. The cameras were to record every offense committed by drivers, which would be stored and processed in a common database. Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. was responsible for project implementation. Tajik Ministry of Internal Affairs was also responsible for the undertaking of the project. The Safe City project and the control center were officially launched on October 31, 2013 by President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon. The Safe City Project was to be carried out in three stages; the second stage was expected to be finished in May 2014. The project was still on going as of December 2014. As of January 16, 2015, it had reportedly generated $4 million for the Tajik state budget via traffic fines. According to a Huawei report issued in February 2015, Huawei completed the project successfully. The MOFCOM site says that the project was completed in October 2015.

Additional details

The Russian project title is Автоматическая система управления транспорта в городе Душанбе (Безопасный город). Asia Plus reported at the time that Tajikistan authorities claimed the loan would be repayable through traffic violation fines.

Number of official sources

10

Number of total sources

23