The opening ceremony of the first stage of the new city of Arkadag was held with the participation of President of Turkmenistan Serdar Berdimuhamedov, TASS reports.
Celebrations in the city, located 30 km from Ashgabat, were held on the day of the 66th anniversary of the leader of the Turkmen people, chairman of the Halk maslahaty (People's Council) Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, who is called Arkadag in the country. It was on his initiative that the construction of a modern city began in 2019. At the same time, the head of the People's Council was not present at them: he led the delegation of Turkmenistan, which will visit Mecca in Saudi Arabia to perform the Hajj.
As part of the first phase of development of Arkadag, 336 modern buildings were erected, including comfortable multi-storey residential buildings, public, educational, medical and cultural facilities, sports facilities and engineering systems.
Residents of new buildings will be 43 thousand people. $3.3 billion was invested in the construction.
In June of this year, the second phase of the city was launched, within which (it will last from 2023 to 2026) it is planned to build service and production facilities for the production of food, industrial, pharmaceutical and medical products.
While there are no residents in the city, their settlement will begin after the opening of the city. Initially, employees of departments and services located here will arrive here, and in general, housing will be available to everyone who wants to buy it. Also a week ago, Serdar Berdimuhamedov signed a resolution according to which graduates who successfully graduated from the country's universities will be sent to work in Arkadag.
Arkadag will be managed on the basis of the "smart city" system and will be the first settlement of this kind in Turkmenistan. It will use environmentally friendly transport, "smart parking", solar panels. Two stages of the city will occupy an area of 1,002 hectares, and the population will be about 73 thousand people.
For the first time in the country's history, at the legislative level, Arkadag was given the status of a city of national importance. Even the capital of the republic does not have such a status. As the Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan Rashid Meredov explained, all issues related to the definition of the territory of the city, the organization of the activities of state bodies in it and other aspects of management are under the jurisdiction of the state and will be decided in the prescribed manner by the central state authorities of the country.
Earlier it was planned that Arkadag would become the center of the Akhal region of Turkmenistan, but Meredov noted that the city of Annau would remain the center of the region.
CentralasianLIGHT.org
June 29, 2023