Uzbekistan, Tashkent, March 7 /Trend D.Azizov/
The Korean Kukdong Corporation has signed a contract with the government of Uzbekistan for the reconstruction of the Husar-Bukhara-Nukus-Beyneu (A-380) road section, worth $162.5 million in the Bukhara region, the Republican Road Fund under the Ministry of Finance of the Republic told Trend on Wednesday.
The Korean company won the tender, announced in 2011as specified in the fund.
Under the contract, Kukdong will carry out the reconstruction of an 85 kilometre stretch of the road by replacing the two-lane asphalt pavement to a four-lane cement concrete highway in 2012-2013.
The contract will be financed by a loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to the sum of $240 million provided for by the government in April 2011.
It is the second of three tranches of the ADB multi-tranche financing programme, $600 million for the construction of national highways was approved by the bank for 2010-2014.
ADB funds are being directed to the reconstruction of sections of the A-380 road to a total length of 220 kilometres and will be used for the purchase of modern road building complexes and the implementation of construction and project management.
As previously reported, ADB provided the first tranche of $115 million to Uzbekistan in May 2010.
German GP Papenburg signed a contract worth $86 million with the Uzbek government in October 2010 for the reconstruction of the 50-kilometrer part of the highway. It won a similar tender announced by means of the first tranche of the ADB. The term of the contract is due before the end of 2012.
The Construction Programme of the National Highway Category of I worth $3.44 billion was approved by the President of Uzbekistan, in May 2009.
It is planned to build four sections of roads with a total length of 1501 thousand kilometres. The project is funded by through the government to the sum of $1.86 billion, as well as by the ADB, Islamic Development Bank and other international financial institutions loans totalling $1.58 billion.
The current total length of roads in Uzbekistan is 146.400 kilometres, 42.500 of which are the commonly used highways including 3.2 thousand kilometres, an international highway and 18.8 thousand kilometres of national importance. There are 20 international transport routes and routes throughout Uzbekistan.