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.

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

塔吉克斯坦，国土面积14.31万平方公里（比湖北少4万多平方公里），山地和高原占93%，其中约一半的地区在海拔3000米以上，被世人称作“高山之国”。

丝路之花出深谷

走出机场，杜尚别下着小雨，黑夜里只有星星点点的路灯。

那天时近11时，华新亚湾水泥有限公司塔吉克职工法鲁合来了，他27岁，一头卷发、浓眉大眼，穿着一套橙色和蓝色相间的工作服，背后印着“华新水泥”四个大字。

“坐上小皮卡，我们出发吧。”法鲁合中文说得很溜。春天是塔吉克斯坦最美的季节，黄褐色的群山好像刷上了一层新绿，幽幽山谷倒映着白云的影子。

汽车在崎岖的山路上前行一个多小时，来到一片开阔的谷地，占地170亩的华新水泥亚湾工厂映入眼帘。

这家工厂共有320名职工，其中中国职工87人，2018年，超过半数春节没有回家，大家都在以身作则，践行着“以厂为家、厂兴我荣、厂衰我耻”的理念。

中国产品声誉佳

2013年8月，华新水泥塔吉克斯坦亚湾工厂点火投产，成为中国水泥工业“一带一路”首个投产的海外工厂。

如今，群山连绵的塔吉克斯坦，小到村镇公路，大到国家大剧院等地标建筑，都嵌入了“华新水泥”的基因。

连续4年，华新亚湾工厂获评“塔吉克斯坦最佳工业企业”。

华新亚湾工厂采用当前先进的新型干法生产工艺，全流程自动化，破碎机、预热器、回转窑、篦冷机等设备首尾相接，生产线长度超过一公里。

厂区，一栋高耸的塔楼格外突兀。这是预热器，总高86米，预热器下端连着的回转窑，窑内温度超过1200℃，生料在此煅烧，变成水泥熟料。

冒着浓浓黑烟，工人灰头土脸，这是当地居民对水泥厂的印象。然而，我们在厂区没有看到一丝黑烟，成群的鸟儿在上空嬉戏。只有阵阵机器轰鸣声，才让我们确信正在生产。

进口国变出口国

新型干法水泥技术先进性之一，便是收尘。烟气排放点均装有增湿塔和收尘器，粉尘控制在20毫克/立方米以下。

在成品仓库，一辆黄色的加长卡车正在装货。“这批水泥出口阿富汗。我们使塔吉克斯坦由水泥进口国，变成了出口国。” 华新亚湾公司生产管理部经理熊春生颇为自豪。

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.

华新水泥塔吉克斯坦亚湾工厂　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过150万吨，大部分从国外进口，每吨价格超过1500元人民币，是中国的4倍。水泥价格高企，阻碍了塔吉克斯坦经济发展。

亚湾工厂投产后，年产水泥100万吨，全面替代进口，水泥价格下降至约420元人民币，为塔吉克斯坦每年节省外汇1亿美元以上。

赤诚真心放飞雏鹰

在华新亚湾水泥办公楼一楼大厅，“我爱塔吉克”华新基金的爱心LOGO（徽标）十分显眼，LOGO由红、白、绿三色组成，是中国和塔吉克斯坦两国国旗的颜色。

基金成立于2014年，是塔吉克斯坦首家中国企业牵头设立的慈善基金。华新亚湾水泥承诺：每生产1吨水泥，就向基金注入1索莫尼（约合0.7元人民币），用于资助当地贫困家庭。

为鼓励塔方职工学习，华新亚湾公司还每周举办课堂学习，定期组织考试，成绩优秀的给予奖励。“我们计划培养一批塔方经理。”熊春生说，未来，中国职工将逐步从亚湾工厂退出，让塔方人员挑大梁。

山鹰，是塔吉克人的图腾，他们认为山鹰象征着勇敢与自由。一片赤诚真心的华新人，正在用他们的奉献与坚守，放飞亚湾山谷的雏鹰。◆