Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Nov. 13
By Demir Azizov- Trend: German GP Papenburg Baugesellschaft mbH has completed the reconstruction of a 50 kilometer long section of the Guzar-Bukhara-Nukus-Beynau (A-380) road in Uzbekistan at a cost of $86 million, the State Joint Stock Company "UzAvtoYol" told Trend on Nov.12.
It was earlier reported that in October 2010, the German company won the tender to serve as the general contractor for the reconstruction of this stretch of road and signed a contract with the Uzbek government on the project.
According to the contract, the German company has replaced the two-laned asphalt pavement with four-laned cement concrete pavement.
Construction is being financed with a loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) worth $115 million that was allocated for Uzbekistan in May 2010. This is the first of the three tranches within two ADB programs for multitranche financing with total amount of $ 1.1 billion for the construction of the national highway.
It was reported that in May 2009, Uzbek president Islam Karimov approved the construction of the first category of the national highway worth $3.44 billion in 2009-2015. It is planned to build four road sections from Beineu-Kungrad-Bukhara-Samarkand-Tashkent-Andijan, Bukhara-Alat, Bukhara-Karshi-Guzar-Termez and Samarkand-Guzar, running to a total length of 2,300 kilometres as part of the programme in the country in 2016.
The project is financed by $2.07 billion worth of governent funds and loans from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), Chinese government credit for countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and other international financial institutions.
At present, the total length of roads in Uzbekistan is about 150,000 kilometres. Some 45,000 kilometres are of public highways, including 3,200 kilometres of international highways and 18,800 kilometres of national highways.
Around 20 international transport routes pass through Uzbekistan.