The Tajik Aluminium Company , abbreviated as TALCO (Tajik

Tajik language

Tajik, Tajik Persian, or Tajiki, is a variety of modern Persian spoken in Central Asia. Historically Tajiks called their language zabani farsī , meaning Persian language in English; the term zabani tajikī, or Tajik language, was introduced in the 20th century by the Soviets...

/Russian

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

: ТАЛКО) headquartered in Tursunzoda, Tajikistan

Tajikistan

Tajikistan , officially the Republic of Tajikistan , is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders it to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east....

, runs the largest aluminum manufacturing plant in Central Asia, and is Tajikistan's chief industrial asset.

The country has no native aluminum ore, so the raw material for the plant has to be imported. Construction of the plant proper began in 1972, and the first pouring of aluminum took place on 31 March 1975.

Tajik news agency AVESTA reported that it produced a total of 416 thousand tonnes of aluminum in 2006.

It consumes 40% of the country's electrical power, and a 2002 study found it responsible for notable fluorine water pollution in the region. It also has been blamed repeatedly by the neighboring regions of Uzbekistan for their serious ecological problems.

On the 3rd of April, 2007 TadAZ has been officially renamed to TALCO - Tajik Aluminum Company.

RUSAL, Russian metallurgical giant, is said to be investing in order of 150 million US dollars into modernizing TadAZ and increasing its production capacity.