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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Kyrgyzstan
Index
For reasons of commerce and national unity, Kyrgyzstan urgently needs
improved systems of transportation and telecommunications, neither of
which has received adequate attention since the 1980s. Some projects did,
however, benefit from substantial foreign investment in the early and
mid-1990s.
Transportation
The failure to develop Kyrgyzstan's internal communications has
exacerbated the republic's tendencies toward regional division between the
north (dominated by the population center of Bishkek) and the south
(dominated by the population center of Osh). The two regions are separated
by sparsely populated, mountainous terrain (see fig. 2; Topography and
Drainage, this ch.). Transportation problems have been exacerbated by the
country's energy dependence, which includes the import of 100 percent of
its gasoline supply. The republic's road and railroad systems are divided
into two parts. The northern part is integrated with the transportation
networks of Kazakstan, and the southern part is integrated with the
networks of Uzbekistan. Three government agencies are responsible for
transportation: the Ministry of Transportation, the State Civil Aviation
Agency, and the Bishkek Railway Department. Kyrgyzstan is part of a
large-scale project to coordinate development of the transportation
infrastructure in the heartland of Asia, sponsored by the UN Economic and
Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. The agency plans to spend as
much as US$1.5 trillion between 1993 and 2000 to facilitate trans-Asian
railroad and highway connections.
In 1990 Kyrgyzstan had 28,400 kilometers of roads, of which 22,400 were
hard-surfaced. Some 371 million passengers and 43.9 million tons of
freight traveled by road in 1992, accounting for 95 percent and 72 percent
of total passengers and freight, respectively. The Karakorum Highway, a
Chinese-built road from Ürümqi, at the eastern end of the Tian
Shan in China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, to Islamabad in northern
Pakistan, has a connector to Bishkek, which is 1,900 kilometers from
Islamabad (and 3,500 kilometers from Karachi on the Arabian Sea) by that
route. A planned connector from Osh via Sary-Tash would cut 200 kilometers
from those distances. In 1994 the condition of the country's roads was
made a state secret.
Although Kyrgyzstan imports 100 percent of the gasoline it uses,
government subsidies have kept gasoline prices relatively low because of
the economic role of the nation's roads; in early 1995, tariff increases
pushed the average price to roughly US$.30 per liter. The subsidy system
has meant that supply is quite erratic and unpredictable; an acute
shortage occurred in April 1995, raising the black-market gasoline price
above US$.50 per liter.
In a country where 95 percent of freight moves by truck, the gasoline
shortage has largely isolated the more remote provinces, and it has made
ambulance, fire, and police services difficult to maintain. In at least
one town in Osh Province, officials responded to the fuel shortage simply
by shutting off all services, leaving the people without light, heat, or
power. Public transportation has been doubly burdened because the gasoline
shortage has restricted use of private cars and crowded an increased
number of riders onto a reduced number of buses. In some cities, such as
Kant and Naryn, the city bus services simply stopped running, making it
almost impossible for people to get to work. Naryn's solution was to
replace the municipal buses with horse-drawn omnibuses.
Rail transport plays a minor role, with a total of 370 kilometers of
track, mostly in the north, providing links to Russia via Kazakstan. In
the Soviet system, all rail freight moved along this corridor. Short lines
in the south connect towns with the Ursatevskaya-Andijon Line in
Uzbekistan. In 1992 some 1.7 million passengers and 5.5 million tons of
freight were transported by rail. A rail link from Ürümqi to
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, was opened in 1994, widening Kyrgyzstan's export
possibilities. In 1995 a spur of that line opened from Ashgabat to
Bandar-Abbas on the Strait of Hormuz in southern Iran. Although a proposal
has been made to build a north-south rail link connecting Balychki with
Kara-Keche, the money for such a project is not expected to be available
in the foreseeable future.
In the early 1990s, available air transport facilities were inadequate.
The national airline was formed from a share of the aircraft and personnel
allocated from the Soviet airline Aeroflot. Manas, the international
airport at Bishkek (named after the mythical national hero), was
modernized in 1988 to make it the most modern commercial airport in
Central Asia. A second international facility is located at Osh, and about
twenty-five usable local fields supplement air service. Manas Airport
originally offered flights to fifty cities in the CIS, including regular
service to Moscow and Tashkent, and charter flights to China, Turkey, and
Saudi Arabia. However, that facility has been almost unused since 1991.
The shortage of jet fuel has forced Kyrgyzstan to rely almost completely
on the Almaty international airport, four hours by road from Bishkek, for
international connections, and the availability of air transport greatly
decreased in the early 1990s. The loss of air services has exacerbated the
country's tendency toward a north-south split.
Data as of March 1996
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