To Release the Eyas of Tajikistan

By Liu Tianzong & Lin Jianwei

The Republic of Tajikistan covers an area of 143,100 square kilometers (about 40,000 square kilometers smaller than Hubei Province, China). About 93% of its land is covered by mountains and plateaus, half of which are 3,000 meters above sea level; the republic is called“a Nation of Highlands.”

A Factory in the Valley

I still remember the night I walked out of Dushanbe Airport. It was raining, and only some faint street lamps were lit in the dark.

At nearly 11 o’clock in the morning, Farrukh, a Tajik employee of Huaxin Cement Co., Ltd came to pick me up.He was 27 years old, with curly hair, thick eyebrows, and large eyes. On the back of his blue and orange overalls was printed “Huaxin Cement” in four large Chinese characters.

“Get in my little pick-up and let’s go.” Farrukh said to me in quite fluent Chinese. It was in spring, the most beautiful season of Tajikistan, when the tawny mountains put on their verdant garments, and the shadows of the clouds spread in the secluded valleys.

After a trip of over one hour on the rugged mountain road,we came into an open valley where the cement factory of the company that covered 28 acres could be seen.

The factory had 320 employees; among them, 87 were Chinese. More than half of these Chinese people did not go back home to China during the Spring Festival of 2018.Everybody set an example to others, fulfilling the concept of “Seeing my factory as home,taking pride in her prosperity,and feeling shameful at her failure.”

The Good Reputation of Chinese Products

In August of 2013, Huaxin’s Yovon (Tajikistan) factory(Huaxin Gayur Cement Co.,Ltd.) was put into operation.As a part of the Belt and Road Initiative, it became the first overseas factory in China’s cement industry. Today,Huaxin’s cement has been playing an important role in the newly built infrastructure of this mountainous country, from countryside roads to landmark construction like the National Theatre, and Huaxin Company has been continuously awarded the title of “Tajikistan’s Best Industrial Enterprise” in the last four years.

“高山之國”塔吉克斯坦The Republic of Tajikistan, a Nation of Highlands

塔吉克斯坦，國土面積14.31萬平方公里（比湖北少4萬多平方公里），山地和高原占93%，其中約一半的地區在海拔3000米以上，被世人稱作“高山之國”。

絲路之花出深谷

走出機場，杜尚別下著小雨，黑夜里只有星星點點的路燈。

那天時近11時，華新亞灣水泥有限公司塔吉克職工法魯合來了，他27歲，一頭卷發、濃眉大眼，穿著一套橙色和藍色相間的工作服，背后印著“華新水泥”四個大字。

“坐上小皮卡，我們出發吧。”法魯合中文說得很溜。春天是塔吉克斯坦最美的季節，黃褐色的群山好像刷上了一層新綠，幽幽山谷倒映著白云的影子。

汽車在崎嶇的山路上前行一個多小時，來到一片開闊的谷地，占地170畝的華新水泥亞灣工廠映入眼簾。

這家工廠共有320名職工，其中中國職工87人，2018年，超過半數春節沒有回家，大家都在以身作則，踐行著“以廠為家、廠興我榮、廠衰我恥”的理念。

中國產品聲譽佳

2013年8月，華新水泥塔吉克斯坦亞灣工廠點火投產，成為中國水泥工業“一帶一路”首個投產的海外工廠。

如今，群山連綿的塔吉克斯坦，小到村鎮公路，大到國家大劇院等地標建筑，都嵌入了“華新水泥”的基因。

連續4年，華新亞灣工廠獲評“塔吉克斯坦最佳工業企業”。

華新亞灣工廠采用當前先進的新型干法生產工藝，全流程自動化，破碎機、預熱器、回轉窯、篦冷機等設備首尾相接，生產線長度超過一公里。

廠區，一棟高聳的塔樓格外突兀。這是預熱器，總高86米，預熱器下端連著的回轉窯，窯內溫度超過1200℃，生料在此煅燒，變成水泥熟料。

冒著濃濃黑煙，工人灰頭土臉，這是當地居民對水泥廠的印象。然而，我們在廠區沒有看到一絲黑煙，成群的鳥兒在上空嬉戲。只有陣陣機器轟鳴聲，才讓我們確信正在生產。

進口國變出口國

新型干法水泥技術先進性之一，便是收塵。煙氣排放點均裝有增濕塔和收塵器，粉塵控制在20毫克/立方米以下。

在成品倉庫，一輛黃色的加長卡車正在裝貨。“這批水泥出口阿富汗。我們使塔吉克斯坦由水泥進口國，變成了出口國。” 華新亞灣公司生產管理部經理熊春生頗為自豪。

Huaxin Gayur Cement applies an advanced dry process in its cement production. The whole process runs automatically;crushers, air pre-heaters, rotary kilns, grate coolers, and all the other devices are connected one by one. The production line is more than one kilometer long.

In the factory area, you can see a conspicuous high tower. It is the 86-meter-tall pre-heater,connected to the rotary kiln at its bottom. The temperature in the kiln is higher than 1200 degrees Celsius; here, raw materials are calcinated there into cement chamotte.

The local people’s expectation was that a cement factory would be all about black smoke and dusty-faced workers. However,walking beneath the joyously flying birds, we did not see any smoke in the Huaxin Factory.Only the noise of the machines could make us believe that the factory was running.

From Importing to Exporting

One of the advantages of Huaxin’s new production technology is dust control. At every emission point of the flue gas, conditioning towers and dust collectors are set, and the dust created is thus limited to within 20 milligram per cubic meter.

In the finished product warehouse, an extra-long yellow truck was being loaded when I arrived. “This batch of cement will be exported into Afghanistan.We have turned Tajikistan from a cement importing country into an exporting country,”Xiong Chunsheng, manager of the production management department of Huaxin Gayur Cement, said to us proudly.

Before 2013, Tajikistan’s annual need for cement was more than 1.5 million tons, and most of the products were imported from abroad with a price of more than 1,500 yuan per ton, which was four times the price in China.The high price of cement had been putting a brake on the country’s economic development.

Since Huaxin Gayur Cement went into operation, however,Tajikistan is now able to produce one million tons of cement every year—there was no more need to import it. At present, the price of cement is therefore reduced significantly to around 420 yuan, and Tajikistan can now save at least 100 million US dollars every year.

華新水泥塔吉克斯坦亞灣工廠　Huaxin Gayur Cement Co., Ltd.

Releasing the Eyas

On the ground floor hall of Huaxin Gayur Cement’s office building, we saw the heartshaped logo of Huaxin’s “I love Tajik” Fund.The logo was red, white, and green, which are the colors of the national flags of China and Tajikistan combined.

The Fund was set up in 2014 to help the local poor families. It was the first charitable foundation set up and led by a Chinese enterprise in Tajikistan. Huaxin Gayur Cement made a promise that with every ton of cement it produced, it would donate one Somoni (about 0.7 yuan) to the Fund.

Huaxin Gayur Cement encourages its staff to accept more education. Weekly training classes have been introduced to the employees,and examinations are organized regularly. In addition, the company gives awards to good students. “We plan to cultivate a group of Tajik managers,” said Xiong. In the future, many of the Chinese staff will gradually leave Yovon so that the Tajik staff will be in charge of the factory.

The mountain eagle, or Eya, is a Tajik totem which represents courage and freedom.Now the staff of Huaxin is sincerely devoting themselves to “releasing the eyas of Yovon Valley.” ◆(Translation: Wang Xiaoke)

2013年以前，塔吉克斯坦每年水泥需求超過150萬噸，大部分從國外進口，每噸價格超過1500元人民幣，是中國的4倍。水泥價格高企，阻礙了塔吉克斯坦經濟發展。

亞灣工廠投產后，年產水泥100萬噸，全面替代進口，水泥價格下降至約420元人民幣，為塔吉克斯坦每年節省外匯1億美元以上。

赤誠真心放飛雛鷹

在華新亞灣水泥辦公樓一樓大廳，“我愛塔吉克”華新基金的愛心LOGO（徽標）十分顯眼，LOGO由紅、白、綠三色組成，是中國和塔吉克斯坦兩國國旗的顏色。

基金成立于2014年，是塔吉克斯坦首家中國企業牽頭設立的慈善基金。華新亞灣水泥承諾：每生產1噸水泥，就向基金注入1索莫尼（約合0.7元人民幣），用于資助當地貧困家庭。

為鼓勵塔方職工學習，華新亞灣公司還每周舉辦課堂學習，定期組織考試，成績優秀的給予獎勵。“我們計劃培養一批塔方經理。”熊春生說，未來，中國職工將逐步從亞灣工廠退出，讓塔方人員挑大梁。

山鷹，是塔吉克人的圖騰，他們認為山鷹象征著勇敢與自由。一片赤誠真心的華新人，正在用他們的奉獻與堅守，放飛亞灣山谷的雛鷹。◆