Uzbekistan, Tashkent, July 25 /Trend D.Azizov/
The state railway company Uzbekistan Railways carried 8.6 million passengers during the first half of the year, an increase of 48.3 per cent compared to the same period last year, the company said on Monday.
The volume of freight traffic remained at the same level as last year at 29.9 million tons.
Freight turnover amounted to 11.6 billion tons-kilometres during the first half of the year compared to 11.2 billion tons per kilometres a year earlier (an increase of 3.6 per cent) whilst passenger traffic increased 5.9-fold to 8.2 billion passenger kilometres.
Uzbekistan Railways was formed in 1994 after the withdrawal of the Central Asian Railway and is state owned.
In Uzbekistan, the total length of railways is 4100 kilometres. Some 66 per cent of freight turnover within the country and almost 80 per cent of export and import cargo fall to the railways.
According to official statistics, the transportation of goods by rail increased by 4.8 per cent to 59.6 million tons in 2011, turnover grew by 1.1 per cent, up to 22.533 billion tons per kilometres. Passengers carried by rail increased by 2.7 per cent to 14.9 million, passenger turnover increased by 4.6 per cent up to 3.039 billion per passenger kilometres.
Official exchange rate on July 23 1896. 57 soum/$1.