80% of all transport routes of Kazakhstan to be in good state by 2020
ASTANA. KAZINFORM - It is expected that 80% of the main transport routes of Kazakhstan will be in a good state by 2020 and 19% of them are expected to be in a satisfactory state, director of the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies Yerlan Karin said at the CCS press conference.
"The main task of the Kazakhstani transit-transport strategy is turning the country into a powerful transit hub of Eurasia. According to preliminary estimations, the volume of trade turnover between China and the Eurasian Union will reach USD 1 trln by 2020. Our task is to create conditions for the transit of the major part of that volume through our country. It is expected that 10% of the freight traffic between the Eurasian Union and China will be by roads and railroads. Kazakhstan plans to attract at least 10 million tons of the freight traffic to trans-Kazakhstani routes," Y. Karin said.
Besides, he noted that there were measures that had to be taken in order to achieve the ultimate goals.
"Implementation of the strategy will allow modernization of internal transport system. 70% of the main transport routes of the country are in bad state. However, thanks to the funds that are planned to be allocated for modernizations of the sector by 2020, 80% of all transport routes will be in good state and 19% of them are expected to be in satisfactory state. It is planned that 300 railway stations, 600 locomotives will be repaired as well as 20 thousand cargo and passenger cars are expected to be renewed. All these measures will allow Kazakhstan to increase the volume of the transit traffic through Kazakhstan two times and the income of it is expected to rise three times," he added.