Branded as the Airitom Free Zone, the facility sits on the banks of the Amu Darya, a river marking the border between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan and feeding much of Central Asia. Airitom is a neighborhood in Termez, the administrative center of Uzbekistan’s Surkhandarya region, which also borders Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

Built at a cost of around $70 million, the zone spans 36 hectares and is guarded by special forces and police. It features a customs office and storage area capable of handling 100,000 trucks and 900,000 tons of goods a year.

It also includes a Hilton Garden Inn, a high-tech hospital, an academic campus, Uzbek and Turkish restaurants, and 50,000 square meters of business space, along with banking and legal services. It is separate from the nearby Termez Cargo Center, an international transport and logistics hub.

Airitom is on the main transportation route linking Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Russia. This is a key factor for landlocked Uzbekistan, which is eager for access to ports on the Indian Ocean. The zone is also starting daily bus service between Airitom and Mazar-i-Sharif, about 60 kilometers away.
 

The private hospital in the zone is a branch of Tashkent-based Akfa Medline. With 315 staff members and state-of-the-art operating and treatment facilities, Akfa Medline has adjusted its services to mainly cater to Afghans, creating separate units for men and women, something it does not do in Tashkent.

Jahongir Artikkhodjayev, an Uzbek business tycoon and former mayor of Tashkent, is the mastermind behind the Airitom Free Zone. Mirpulatov confirmed that the zone is under Akfa Group, one of the largest Uzbek industrial holdings, founded and run by Artikkhodjayev.(20241015)
 

Officials of Afghanistan’s Islamic fundamentalist Taliban administration have warned Uzbekistan that the music needs to stop in the city’s new Airitom Free Economic Zone (FEZ), or Afghans will be banned from travelling to the special territory.

As things stand, Afghan citizens gain 15-day visa-free access to Airitom, a 36-hectare tax-free zone located not far from “Freedom Bridge”, which spans the waters of the Amu-Darya river that forms the border between Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. If the Taliban’s concerns over the musical performances breaching their “morality laws” cannot be resolved, the future of the Airitom FEZ could be imperilled.(20251014)