YEREVAN, December 17. / ARKA /. The parliament of Armenia has approved today a loan agreement signed September 5 with the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The $37 million loan is expected to help Armenia rehabilitate its electricity transmission system. The loan will be granted from ADB’s special concessional fund, according to Manila-based bank.

Earlier Armenian energy and natural resources minister Yervand Zakarian said the loan will be used to modernize the SCADA control and data acquisition system and to rehabilitate Agarak-2 and Shuniayr substations.

The reconstruction work will begin in January 2015 and end in 2019. The loan repayment period is 25 years, with a five-year grace period and an interest rate of 2% per annum.

The loan program will be implemented by High-Voltage Electrical Networks and Electricity System operator companies which also signed relating agreements with the Asian Development Bank.

According to the ADB, “the loan is designed to help Armenia make a major overhaul of its electricity transmission system inherited from the Soviet era, including the expansion of the management and sharing of data and modernization of two high-voltage substations.”

The project is supposed also to reduce losses in transmission lines, to increase the capacity of substations and improve the quality and reliability of power supply in urban and rural communities, which, in turn, is beneficial in both economic and social aspects.

Armenia joined the ADB in 2005.  As of 2014 April it had invested $133 million in Armenia’s private sector. -0-