The AIIB page, status “Proposed”, names the borrower as the Republic of Tajikistan, with the finance minister as its contact, the implementing entity as Barqi Tojik, the category as B, and the work: rehabilitating and raising the capacity of 5 generating units, inspecting, repairing and rebuilding the penstocks, installing intake service gates, rehabilitating the powerhouse, rebuilding the Nurek bridge, buying heavy machinery, technical assistance, and dam-safety works that the EFSD finances as a separate component. No total cost and no approval date are on the page.
The World Bank’s own record of the second phase: $50 million approved in June 2020 and $65 million of additional grant financing in December 2021 for “the remaining six generating units, the Nurek bridge, the powerhouse, and other key buildings”, with a financing gap of $164 million named at the time; Asia-Plus adds a further $65 million in May 2022. Phase 1, launched in March 2019 for 3 of the 9 units, was $225.7 million from the Bank, $60 million from AIIB and $40 million from the Eurasian Development Bank. The plant was built for 3,000 MW, ran at 2,320 MW in 2021 and is to reach 3,214 MW after rehabilitation, by the Bank’s figures.
The Bank’s framework says the risk is high and the money becomes debt; the AIIB page is where that sentence turns into a dam.
Five units on the AIIB page, six in the Bank’s 2021 release: the two documents describe the phase at different dates.
Tajikistan’s grant era ended on the Bank’s calendar on 1 July. The Country Partnership Framework for 2026 to 2032, discussed by the Board on 3 June, moves the country from IDA grants to IDA credits from fiscal 2027, puts the indicative envelope at $1 billion to $1.2 billion over the period, and rates the programme’s overall risk high, with Rogun’s fiscal weight and state-enterprise liabilities on its list. Barqi Tojik, the implementing entity for Nurek, closed 2025 owing 8.36 billion somoni to the plants that supply it, with accumulated losses of 29.30 billion and an auditor’s going-concern warning.
AIIB’s financing type on the page is sovereign, which is a loan to the state. It would be the largest single sum in the project’s record after the Bank’s $225.7 million for the first phase, by the figures on the two banks’ pages.
The Bank’s framework says the risk is high and the money becomes debt; the AIIB page is where that sentence turns into a dam. The loan would be serviced by a state whose power utility cannot pay its own generators, for a plant built for 3,000 MW that the second phase is meant to bring back above that figure. What Dushanbe got on grant terms until June will now be measured against $220 million at a lender that prices in dollars. The watch: the AIIB Board’s date, the Bank’s own share of the second phase as a credit, and whether the EFSD’s dam-safety component carries a sum.