Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) - On 21 November 2019, Samarkand hosted a reception ceremony of 80 garbage trucks by the Marokand Obod State Unitary Enterprise under the project “Modernization of Solid Waste Management in the City of Samarkand”, jointly funded by the French Development Agenny (AFD), the European Union and the Government of the Republic of Uzbekistan .

The event was attended by representatives of the Government of the Republic of Uzbekistan, the Embassy of France, the European Union and the French Development Agency.

During the ceremony, guests got acquainted with the objectives of the project, its main stages, as well as with the current stage of implementation. The presentation presented in the first part of the event gave a clear idea of the future prospects of the project and its contribution to the development of the city of Samarkand. In addition, participants visited the truck exhibition, which presented the entire capacity of garbage trucks.

In December 2015, the French Development Agency provided the Republic of Uzbekistan, represented by the Ministry of Finance, with a sovereign loan of 23.5 million euros. This loan is complemented by an EU grant of €8 million under the IFCA grant (Investment Fund for Central Asia).

The project aims to modernize the collection and disposal of municipal waste, and increase the efficiency of their processing by modernizing about 200 collection points, purchasing vehicles for waste collection, cleaning and closing the existing landfill, building a new landfill in the form of a bioreactor, collecting and valorizing biogas, creating a semi-mechanical sorting facility installations, as well as using other components (technical assistance and awareness campaigns) in the city of Samarkand.