World Bank assists Uzbekistan in building privately financed toll road
The World Bank’s Global Infrastructure Fund has provided a $350,000 grant for the preparation of a preliminary feasibility study for the construction of the 340-kilometre Tashkent-Andijan highway – it will be the first ever privately financed toll road in Uzbekistan.
Construction of the route is expected to cost over $2bn.
“The upgrade will be to expressway standards, using the public-private partnership model. This PPP would be the first in the Uzbekistan road sector, making it a milestone in history and a catalyst for future work coming to the market”, said Mansur Bustoni, transport sector specialist at the World Bank Office for Uzbekistan.
“I would like to emphasize that it is premature now to discuss toll tariffs since they will be determined only after the PPP is tendered and contracted. There are several stages before the tariffs are defined. So far, the Pre-Feasibility Study demonstrated that the project can be further developed. In the next stage of the Pre-Investment Study, technical, financial, economic, legal, environmental, and social aspects of the project will be assessed and determined. Following this, an international competitive tender will indicate the final tariffs for the specific road sections that will be offered by the participating bidders”, he added.