07.06.22

The construction of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway is scheduled to begin in 2023. Sadyr Japarov, President of the Kyrgyz Republic, stated this in an interview with the Kabar news agency.

tart construction next year if the railway project is completed soon,” the politician said.

In 2003, the PRC allocated 20,000,000 yuan (or $2.4 million) to develop a preliminary feasibility study for the railway line. Chinese experts who developed a preliminary feasibility study of the railway line noted a number of advantages of the new route compared to existing transport corridors: the new line is shorter than the existing transport corridor by more than 900 kilometers, the construction of the railway will improve the state of transport communication between the Central Asian countries and provide them with a convenient exit to sea.

According to 2003 estimates, Kyrgyzstan will be able to receive about $200 million annually through the transit of goods through its territory.

“Now we are discussing such technical issues as the route of the road, the track width, the location of the transfer station,” said Ulan Kulov, head of the capital construction department of the state-owned enterprise NK Kyrgyz Temir Zholu. – In 2021, we conducted field research on the territory of Kyrgyzstan with the help of local specialists, examined one of the new – combined – route options. All materials were transferred for study to China and Uzbekistan. This year we plan to continue working together with specialists from China and Uzbekistan, these materials should form the basis of a feasibility study.

The combined version of the route "Kyrgyz Temir Zholu" proposed back in 2020. It involves the construction of the Kashgar-Torugart-Arpa-Makmal-Jalal-Abad section, which is further connected to existing roads leading to Uzbekistan.

“The issue of funding is important. The difficulty is that this project is very expensive, including because of the difficult relief of the mountainous terrain: there are many tunnels and bridges,” Ulan Kulov explained.

The key question of the project's payback is what kind of cargo and in what volume it can attract, the expert added. In the variant proposed by Kyrgyz Temir Zholu, the volume of the cargo base is estimated from 7 to 13 million tons per year.

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