"Western Europe-Western China" highway is of great importance not only for Kazakhstan, but in global scale as well
As is known, within this project Kazakhstan plans to build and reconstruct about 2, 500 km of roads. The corridor's length makes up 8,445 km, 2,787 out of which run through the Kazakhstan's territory. And how much kilometers are passing through Zhambyl oblast?
The highway will pass seven districts of Zhambyl oblast. They are Zhualy, Zhambyl, Baizak, Turar Ryskulov, Merken, Shu, Kordai. The corridor's axle will be on the current Almaty-Tashkent-Termez road diverging the territory of Kyrgyzstan and will be of 495,3 km length. The Islamic Development Bank and Asian Development Bank are financing the construction.
The project provides for bypass of all big and medium settlements. Residential estates, fuel filling stations, and other constructions located at the right-of-way will be pulled down, and the owners will be paid compensation of real estate value. About 1,183 ha out of about 1,911 ha of the land allocated for permanent use for the road construction were compensated, bought out and got from the national land fund.
Recently there was held the first session of the Headquarters for Coordination of the "Western Europe-Western China" projectin Taraz. Vice Minister of Transport and Communications Dulat Kuterbekov took part in it. What issues were raised at this session?
The session focused first of all on importance of involvement of local specialists in the work and usage of domestic construction materials. The universities and secondary technical education institutions were charged to organize staffing in necessary quantity and necessary professions.
Touching upon construction materials, 17 mln tons of ballast, 3 mln tons of cement and asphalt bitumen, enormous number of concrete products are necessary for the construction of the Zhambyl road section. The oblast has 25 boulder and 35 gravel-sand and ballast quarries. About 15 coating plants and crushing-and-screening plants, a number of large and medium enterprises on structural steel production are functioning in the region.
Was the project agreed with the local executive bodies, environmentalists and other departments?
The projects on reconstruction of the sections of "Western Europe-Western China" international transit corridor in Zhambyl oblast passed all necessary approvals with the local executive bodies. There was held an assessment of the project's impact on the region's ecology, which was approved by all appropriate authorities.
For more information articles were published in regional mass media, public consultations were carried out.
This year Kazakhstan will start work on construction and modernization of roads in the corridor of the "Western Europe-Western China" route, about which Head of the State Nursultan Nazarbayev informed the national mass media in the interview . As the President noted, significant regional development will obtain five densely populated oblasts of the country - Aktobe, Kyzylorda, South Kazakhstan, Zhambyl, Almaty, including the city of Almaty.
The transport corridor rises at the border with China, will pass through Kazakhstan giving an optimal access to Europe not only for China, but for other Asian countries as well. The project will ensure high level of service with the modern intellectual system and logistics centers. The road infrastructure fulfils functions of interregional and interstate transport bridge.
Implementation of the international investment megaproject, which is planned to be completed by the 20th anniversary of Kazakhstan's Independence, will be a significant impulse in Kazakhstan's economy development, including Zhambyl oblast.
Thank you for the interview!