The World Bank has approved a US$350,000 grant to fund a feasibility study for a toll road connecting Tashkent and Andizhan, which will transform the densely populated Fergana Valley and other parts of Uzbekistan. Link.

This is in addition to the electrification of the Fergana Valley Railway, which is partly funded by the Asian Development Bank at a cost of US$177 million and will be completed in 2021.

The potential 340 km road will be seen as a game changer because it will become the first toll road in Uzbekistan. This also challenges China's leading position in road construction in Central Asia.

Commenting on the plan, Mansour Bustoni, a transportation expert at the World Bank’s Tashkent office, said that the project will meet “the highway standard using a public-private partnership (PPP)”. "This will be the first PPP project in Uzbekistan's road industry, a milestone in history, and a catalyst for future market work," he said. This US$350,000 grant is the second grant provided by the World Bank for the project, after the World Bank launched a pre-feasibility study in 2019.

The construction of this road is expected to cost US$2 billion. Like other projects carried out by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Asian Development Bank, this also marks their desire to play an active role in major infrastructure projects in the region. Uzbekistan has recently become a member of the European Union’s GSP+ trade program, which shows that the European Union intends to play a role in the development of Central Asia. The GSP+ program doubles the number of product categories that can be traded duty-free between the EU and Uzbekistan.

Strangely, this means that EU-funded infrastructure will be integrated with part of China’s One Belt One Road initiative, while providing financial options for countries such as Uzbekistan, which until recently relied on Russia and China for infrastructure. Construction and financing.

So far, China has built miles of roads in the area to speed up travel times and improve reliability, and will continue to do so. Three days before the World Bank announced its Tashkent-Andiyan toll road plan, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank said it would fund a $325 million road upgrade between Obigarm and Nurobod near Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

The project includes the construction of 30 kilometers of roads and two tunnels of 1.6 kilometers and 1.7 kilometers in length.

With the introduction of plans to integrate the region with South Asia, infrastructure financing in Central Asia began to heat up. There are many incentives for this-in addition to shortening the transportation time to save supply chain costs, it also promotes regional peace by creating wealth. Promoting regional peace by creating wealth can also shorten transportation time, thereby saving supply chain costs. Uzbekistan has also signed a plan to build a railway from Tashkent to the port on the southern coast of Pakistan, which will provide a seaport channel for Central Asia for the first time. Editor/Sang Xiaomei