TASHKENT, Aug 26 (AFP) - Japan`s Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi signed a 150-million-dollar (125-million-euro) loan to Uzbekistan on Thursday intended to help link Asia and Afghanistan`s rail systems, a Japanese official said.
The money will be spent on a mountainous 110-kilometre (65-mile) section of railway in the south of this former Soviet republic to be completed by 2007, Japanese foreign ministry spokesman Hatsuhisa Takashima said.
"This project will also help Afghanistan to rebuild its economy," Takashima told journalists.
Eventually Uzbekistan hopes that the railway will reach south through Afghanistan to Iran`s Gulf coast and east through Kyrgyzstan and China to the Pacific Ocean, creating a lucrative oil transit route, Uzbek officials have said.
Earlier Kawaguchi urged greater economic cooperation between the often fractious former Soviet republics of Central Asia that broke from Moscow in 1991.
"Uzbekistan is historically and strategically important for Japan -- it has 25 million people and is rich in minerals," Kawaguchi said.
"But the whole Central Asia region is 55 million people and a market of 55 million is better," Kawaguchi told an academic forum in the Uzbek capital Tashkent.
Uzbek construction teams have been participating in war-torn Afghanistan`s reconstruction by sending builders and engineers to restore bridges and roads in the north of the neighbouring country.