Afghanistan's Communications Minister Amir Zee Sangin said here on Monday that an Iranian manufacturer of fiber optic cables has won the International Kandahar Fiber Optic Tender.
Speaking to IRNA on the sidelines of a ceremony on the occasion of clicking on the International Iran-Afghanistan Fiber Optic Project, he added, "The Afghan team in charge of surveying the proposals received from several foreign companies, chose the Yazd Martyr Qandi Communications Cables Company as the executive authority and manufacturer of the Herat Fiber Optic Project."
He said, "The Kandahar International Fiber Optic Network is aimed at adding 15,000 new phone lines for Afghan users and its contract would soon be signed between Afghanistan's Communications Ministry and the Iranian winner firm."
Zee Sangin added, "There are now 165,000 active phone lines throughout Afghanistan and in order to eliminate the people's need to more lines we have distributed another 130,000 wireless phone sets among the applicants for new lines.
The Afghan Communications Minister said, "projects of setting up stationary phone networks in Kabul, Kandahar, Mazar Sharif, Kunduz, and Jalalabad, too, have been put on international tenders, during which Iranian, Chinese, and Indian firms were the winners." The 150-km international Taibad-Herat fiber optic project, which has been implemented jointly by Iran and Afghanistan was put into operation in the Afghan city of Herat on Sunday.
The 1.28 million dollar project has been financed by Iran as non-return relief aid.
The operations of the project got underway at Dogharoun border in the Iranian city of Taibad bordering Herat province in April 2004 and it was implemented on the threshold of the International Telecommunications Day.
Director General of the Telecommunications Company of Iran Engineer Saber Feyzi said on Monday that the project was mainly designed to create telecommunications infrastructure network and help the city of Herat and Afghanistan to access international telecommunications network.
"The 12-wire fiber optics cables have been laid underground at the depth of 1.5-2.5 meters between the two cities of Taibad and Herat," he added.
For his part, the Managing Director of Khorasan Razavi Province Telecommunications Department, Ali Kargozar said that a 560 million dollar non-return credit allocated to the project by Iran facilitated the implementation of the fiber optic network.
© IRNA 2006
