Regional : Assessing Economic Corridor Development Potential Among Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan
The proposed knowledge and support technical assistance (TA) will support the assessment of economic corridor development (ECD) potential among Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, with focus on geographically connected major cities and oblasts. The TA is designed in response to demand of developing member countries (DMCs) under the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation Program (CAREC) to explore the development of new economic corridors to create business development opportunities and generate employment and entrepreneurship, as ECD is an important element in the implementation of the CAREC 2030 strategy. The TA builds on ongoing work of the Almaty-Bishkek Economic Corridor (ABEC) program supported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The TA participating countries are also covered by the Belt and Road Initiative geography.
Project Details
-
Project Officer
Hu, Xinglan
Central and West Asia Department
Request for information -
Country/Economy
Regional -
Sector
- Industry and trade
| Project Name | Assessing Economic Corridor Development Potential Among Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan | ||||||||||||
| Project Number | 52188-001 | ||||||||||||
| Country / Economy | Regional Kazakhstan Tajikistan Uzbekistan |
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| Project Status | Active | ||||||||||||
| Project Type / Modality of Assistance | Technical Assistance |
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| Source of Funding / Amount |
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| Operational Priorities | OP1: Addressing remaining poverty and reducing inequalities OP5: Promoting rural development and food security OP6: Strengthening governance and institutional capacity |
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| Sector / Subsector |
Agriculture, natural resources and rural development / Agricultural policy, institutional and capacity development - Agro-industry, marketing, and trade Industry and trade / Industry and trade sector development - Small and medium enterprise development Information and communication technology / ICT strategy and policy, and capacity development Public sector management / Economic affairs management Transport / Transport policies and institutional development |
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| Gender | Some gender elements | ||||||||||||
| Description | The proposed knowledge and support technical assistance (TA) will support the assessment of economic corridor development (ECD) potential among Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, with focus on geographically connected major cities and oblasts. The TA is designed in response to demand of developing member countries (DMCs) under the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation Program (CAREC) to explore the development of new economic corridors to create business development opportunities and generate employment and entrepreneurship, as ECD is an important element in the implementation of the CAREC 2030 strategy. The TA builds on ongoing work of the Almaty-Bishkek Economic Corridor (ABEC) program supported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The TA participating countries are also covered by the Belt and Road Initiative geography. | ||||||||||||
| Project Rationale and Linkage to Country/Regional Strategy | Central Asia is undergoing an economic recovery and benefiting from positive regional dynamics with the opening of Uzbekistan. Under the new circumstances, Central Asian countriesparticularly Uzbekistan and neighboring Kazakhstan and Tajikistanare keen to harness the potential of regional cooperation and integration (RCI) to promote growth, create jobs, and improve the quality of life of their citizens. Trade has been identified in these countries as an enabling driver in diversifying economies from a narrow-base (overreliance on natural resources) into a more broad-based and sustainable growth model, for enhanced export competitiveness. Further, the growing trend of regional and global production networks, value chains, and new technologies, coupled with improved information and communication technology, create necessary conditions for Central Asia and CAREC member countries to increase participation in regional and global trade. A CAREC Integrated Trade Agenda 2030 is being formulated to facilitate this process.All these provide favorable conditions for Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan to pursue cross-border ECD cooperation to increase trade integration. ECD works by exploiting the strong growth effects of spatial economic development featured by scale economies, agglomeration, diversification, and specialization of economic activities. ECD requires necessary physical conditions and seamless policy coordination to achieve desired effects. Showcased by successful ECDs in Asiae.g., Malaysia's five-ECD national development strategy and India's Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor for manufacturing and exportsas well as the ABEC pilot under CAREC, and considering the geographic contiguity for spatial planning and development, the Shymkent-Tashkent-Khujand cities and surrounding Turkestan-Tashkent-Sughd oblasts were identified as another possible ECD to be explored under CAREC. This TA is designed to support scoping and prefeasibility studies to explore the ECD potentials of Shymkent-Tashkent-Khujand cities and surrounding Turkestan-Tashkent-Sughd oblasts. The TA will support spatial economic development including trade analysis among the three cities and oblasts to identify possible economic complementarities, including (i) agglomeration of certain economic activities, (ii) scale economies in focus sectors and/or areas and products, (iii) integration of manufacturing value chains, and (iv) economic and industrial cluster development for specialized products. It will identify major constraints, gaps, and weak linksin terms of physical infrastructure connectivity (e.g., information and communication technology constraints) and policy environment (e.g., for private sector investment), including investment neededin fully exploiting economic complementarities through an envisaged ECD. The TA will also support workshops and seminars that promote ECD-related knowledge sharing and awareness raising to enhance understanding and knowledge of ECD in the CAREC region. As ECD has great potential in creating job opportunities for women by participating in cross-border activities (e.g., tourism and trade), the above-mentioned studies will attend to gender equality as a crosscutting issue in the ECD analysis. | ||||||||||||
| Impact | Regional cooperation and integration in the CAREC region strengthened |
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| Project Outcome | |
|---|---|
| Description of Outcome | ECD prospects among Shymkent-Tashkent-Khujand cities and surrounding oblasts better informed |
| Progress Toward Outcome | During the project's inception mission held on 20-31 May 2019 in the three countries, the team received strong support and high expectations at all levels of government. The project will build upon the strong momentum in regional cooperation among the three countries. 25.The proposed geographic coverage for the economic corridor was regarded as appropriate with high development potential, and the initiative is well aligned with the development priorities of the three countries. On the basis of consultations with stakeholders during the inception mission and a preliminary assessment of the prospects for increased cross-border economic cooperation and integration, initial priority sectors and areas for the corridor have been identified. Inception workshops have also been conducted in the three countries. |
| Implementation Progress | |
| Description of Project Outputs | Prospects and potentials of increased trade integration among Shymkent-Tashkent-Khujand cities and surrounding Turkestan-Tashkent-Sughd oblasts analyzed Prospects and potentials of an envisaged Shymkent-Tashkent-Khujand tripartite ECD with possible expansion to surrounding Turkestan-Tashkent-Sughd oblasts analyzed ECD related knowledge sharing strengthened and awareness raised |
| Status of Implementation Progress (Outputs, Activities, and Issues) | Output 1: Prospects and potentials of increased trade integration among ShymkentTashkentKhujand cities and surrounding TurkestanTashkentSughd oblasts analyzed The scoping study to analyze trade (goods and services) flows among ShymkentTashkentKhujand cities and surrounding TurkestanTashkentSughd oblast has been initiated and outline identified. Output 2: Prospects and potentials of an envisaged ShymkentTashkentKhujand tripartite economic corridor development with possible expansion to surrounding TurkestanTashkentSughd oblasts analyzed The prefeasibility study assessing economic corridor potential among ShymkentTashkentKhujand cities and surrounding oblasts has been initiated and outline identified. The study will analyze opportunities and challenges in economic interaction in proposed focus sectors (transport connectivity, regional tourism, agriculture value chain development, trade facilitation, and SEZs/FEZs and IZs/IPs), identify constraints, gaps and investment needs, as well as provide policy recommendations in developing the envisioned economic corridor. Note: Outputs 1 and 2 will employ desk research, quantitative and participatory approaches in completing the studies. Output 3: ECD related knowledge sharing strengthened and awareness raised Three inception workshops were conducted in Nur-Sultan (Kazakhstan), Dushanbe (Tajikistan), and Tashkent (Uzbekistan) which were attended by stakeholders from key government agencies, chambers of business or industry, private sector representatives, and development partners at central, oblast, and city level. During these workshops, the mission explained the preliminary setup of the study, introduced the economic corridor concepts and international experience, and presented a proposed STKEC vision and initial assessment of the corridor's opportunities and challenges. The 1st regional workshop will be held on 5-6 December 2019 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. |
| Geographical Location | Kazakhstan - Shymkent, Turkestan; Tajikistan - Khujand, Viloyati Sughd; Uzbekistan - Tashkent |
| Summary of Environmental and Social Aspects | |
|---|---|
| Environmental Aspects | |
| Involuntary Resettlement | |
| Indigenous Peoples | |
| Stakeholder Communication, Participation, and Consultation | |
| During Project Design | The TA was designed in response to demand from developing member countries under the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation Program to explore new economic corridor developments to create business development opportunities, employment, and entrepreneurship. |
| During Project Implementation | During the TA inception mission held on 20-31 May 2019 and succeeding consultation meetings in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, stakeholders from the key government agencies, chambers of commerce, private sector and donor partners were met to: (1) introduce the project, (2) solicit views on opportunities, challenges and potential focus areas of envisioned economic corridor, (3) inquire on related information and statistics, (4) better understand activities, plans and roadmaps in promoting economic corridor development of the three countries at varying levels of government, and (5) develop a concrete plan for the final report of the TA study. |
| Business Opportunities | |
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| Consulting Services | The TA will be implemented over 26 months from October 2018 to December 2020. ADB will engage about 29 person-months of international and 66 person-months of national consulting services during the TA implementation period. International consultants will include (I) ECD experts (including a team leader) to provide technical advice and analytical support on ECD potentials among Shymkent-Tashkent-Khujand cities surrounding Turkestan-Tashkent-Sughd oblasts and provide policy recommendations, and (ii) trade expert to analyze trade links among the three cities and surrounding oblasts and provide policy recommendations for increased trade integration through possible ECD. National consultants based at ADB headquarters and in the three CAREC member countries will include (i) 4 research assistants to provide technical support and inputs to the international consultants, and the CAREC Unit within the Regional Cooperation and Operations Coordination Division of CWRD, including field and local support; and (ii) a project coordinator to provide operations and administrative support to the resource persons to provide inputs, review reports and participate as presenters, facilitators and/or discussants in related meetings and workshops. |
| Responsible ADB Officer | Hu, Xinglan |
| Responsible ADB Department | Central and West Asia Department |
| Responsible ADB Division | Regional Cooperation and Operations Coordination Div, CWRD |
| Executing Agencies |
Asian Development Bank |
| Timetable | |
|---|---|
| Concept Clearance | 25 Jul 2018 |
| Fact Finding | - |
| MRM | - |
| Approval | 31 Oct 2018 |
| Last Review Mission | - |
| Last PDS Update | 30 Sep 2019 |
TA 9630-REG
| Milestones | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Approval | Signing Date | Effectivity Date | Closing | ||
| Original | Revised | Actual | |||
| 31 Oct 2018 | - | 31 Oct 2018 | 31 Dec 2020 | 31 Oct 2023 | - |
| Financing Plan/TA Utilization | Cumulative Disbursements | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ADB | Cofinancing | Counterpart | Total | Date | Amount | |||
| Gov | Beneficiaries | Project Sponsor | Others | |||||
| 1,300,000.00 | 800,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 2,100,000.00 | 13 Apr 2023 | 912,069.51 |
Project Data Sheets (PDS) contain summary information on the project or program. Because the PDS is a work in progress, some information may not be included in its initial version but will be added as it becomes available. Information about proposed projects is tentative and indicative.
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| Title | Document Type | Document Date |
|---|---|---|
| Assessing Economic Corridor Development Potential Among Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan: Technical Assistance Report | Technical Assistance Reports | Oct 2018 |
Safeguard Documents See also: Safeguards
Safeguard documents provided at the time of project/facility approval may also be found in the list of linked documents provided with the Report and Recommendation of the President.
None currently available.
Evaluation Documents See also: Independent Evaluation
None currently available.
Related Publications
| Title | Document Type | Document Date |
|---|---|---|
| A Road Map for Shymkent–Tashkent–Khujand Economic Corridor Development | Reports | Jan 2021 |
| Оценка потенциала торговли вдоль предполагаемого Экономического коридора Шымкент-Ташкент-Худжанд | Reports | Dec 2020 |
| Assessing the Potential of Trade Along the Proposed Shymkent–Tashkent–Khujand Economic Corridor | Reports | Dec 2020 |
| Дорожная карта развития экономического коридора Шымкент-Ташкент-Худжанд | Reports | Dec 2020 |
The Access to Information Policy (AIP) establishes the disclosure requirements for documents and information ADB produces or requires to be produced in its operations to facilitate stakeholder participation in ADB's decision-making. For more information, refer to the Safeguard Policy Statement, Operations Manual F1, and Operations Manual L3.
Requests for information may also be directed to the InfoUnit.
Tenders
Contracts Awarded
| Contract Title | Approval Number | Contract Date | Contractor | Address | Executing Agency | Total Contract Amount (US$) | Contract Amount Financed by ADB (US$) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Policy and Advisory Technical Assistance | Technical Assistance 9630 | 22 Oct 2021 | Pricewaterhousecoopers Pvt. Ltd. (INDIA) in association with SCMI Group LLP (SINGAPORE) | 8-2-624/A/1, 4th Floor, Road No.10, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh 500 034 India | Asian Development Bank | 759,628.00 | — |
Procurement Plan
None currently available.