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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Kazakstan
Index
Overall transportation volume probably peaked in the late Soviet
period, when enormous inefficiencies added time and distance to all types
of movement. The postindependence correlation of prices to cost has meant
abandonment of uneconomical transportation practices. The pipeline system,
although crucial to the economic welfare of oil-rich Kazakstan, remains
without direct connection to potential customers in the West and
elsewhere. The national telephone system serves only a small percentage of
the population; domestic radio and television remain limited and state
owned.
Roads
In 1994 and 1995, annual freight movement by road, which already
accounted for less than 10 percent of Kazakstan's freight haulage,
declined more than 50 percent per year because of the shift to more
efficient means of transport and the country's overall economic decline.
In 1993 Kazakstan counted about 400,000 road vehicles for freight
transport, many of which were pieces of farm equipment. Available tractors
and trailers are mostly small and in poor condition; the shortage of spare
parts and the lack of a domestic truck-manufacturing industry hinder
long-distance haulage.
The passenger bus fleet, which numbered 25,500 vehicles in 1991, has
declined in numbers and quality since the last new buses were added in
1988. Spare parts are also a problem in bus maintenance, and local bus
service is impeded by government caps on fares.
The basic road infrastructure (about 88,000 kilometers, of which about
83,000 kilometers are paved or gravel) serves the widely dispersed
population and economic centers adequately. However, there is a shortage
of road maintenance equipment, and construction and repair contracts are
allocated to as many as seventy different companies and plants owned by
the Ministry of Construction and Housing and the Ministry of Transport and
Communications. As a result, construction and repair operations are
disorganized and uneconomical.
Railroads
Kazakstan Railways is the third largest rail system in the former
Soviet Union, smaller only than the systems of Russia and Ukraine. In 1991
railroads carried 90 percent of Kazakstan's freight and 30 percent of its
passenger traffic. In 1993 the rail system included 14,148 kilometers of
track, of which 3,050 kilometers were electrified. All track was
1,520-millimeter gauge. In 1993 the system carried about 39.7 million
passengers and hauled about 517 million tons of freight, but haulage
declined 42 percent in 1994, most notably in chemicals, cement, iron ore,
and ferrous metals. Like the road system, Kazakstan Railways suffers from
a shortage of spare parts; as much as 95 percent of spare parts,
equipment, and rolling stock must be purchased from Russia, Ukraine, and
other countries. Repair plants for rolling stock are in poor condition and
use outmoded equipment.
Pipelines
In 1992 Kazakstan had 2,850 kilometers of pipeline for crude oil, 3,480
kilometers for natural gas, and 1,500 kilometers for refined products. The
oil pipeline system was designed to ship domestic oil, most of which is in
the western part of the republic, and to bring Russia's Siberian oil to
Kazak refineries. Construction of a pipeline that would bring Kazakstan's
oil to world markets has proven a major obstacle in the development of the
Tengiz field because of disagreements over routing, financing, and
ownership. Russian control of Kazakstan's only pipelines to the outside
world has restricted oil exports to the West and discouraged foreign
investment in the oil and gas industries. In 1995 Kazakstan, Turkmenistan,
and Azerbaijan, all of which have suffered export shutdowns in their
cross-Russia pipelines, began discussing a massive pipeline project that
would bring their products across China to the Pacific Ocean and into
Japan (see Energy, this ch.).
Air Transport
Kazakstan Airlines was founded in 1993 as a joint-stock company
initially based on 100 aircraft that the republic received as its share
when the Soviet Aeroflot fleet was divided among the former republics. Six
private airline companies also operate within the republic. The republic
airlines of Ukraine and Uzbekistan began service to Kazakstan's regional
airports in 1992, and Lufthansa of Germany and Turkish Airlines have begun
international flights into Almaty. Air traffic between Kazakstan and other
CIS republics is handled mainly by Aeroflot. The airport at Almaty,
Kazakstan's only international facility, underwent a gradual modernization
of instrumentation, air control, and communications facilities in the
early 1990s; beginning in 1993, international traffic to and from
Kyrgyzstan also moved through Almaty. In 1994, besides connections with
CIS destinations, regular flights went to Frankfurt, Hannover, Vienna,
Zurich, Istanbul, Delhi, Karachi, Tel Aviv, and Sharjah. In 1991 some 7.9
million passengers and about 36.4 million tons of freight passed through
Kazak airports. In 1994 the republic had twenty commercial airports and
another 132 classified as usable, of which forty-nine had
permanent-surface runways and eight had runways longer than 3,600 meters.
Water Transport
The republic's two inland waterways, the Syrdariya in south-central
Kazakstan and the Ertis River in the northeast, have a total of 4,000
kilometers of waterway navigable by commercial craft. A state agency, the
Kazakstan River Fleet Industrial Association (Kazrechmorflot), administers
river traffic. In 1992 the association's eleven water transport companies
carried about 1.6 million passengers and about 7 million tons of freight.
Data as of March 1996
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