Interfax
December 1

Uzbekistan has transferred two sectors of a railroad over 90 kilometers long to the jurisdiction of Kazakhstan. Uzbekistan's Temir Jularri State Railroad Company used to control the lines.

Kazakhstan Temir Zholy obtained two railroad sectors, 54 and 37 kilometers long, on December 1, first deputy head of the company's Chimkent department Khairula Sarsenov told Interfax.

Representatives of the Uzbek and Kazakh railroad administrations signed a relevant protocol in Tashkent in 2002. Kazakhstan obtained five railroad stations, about 185 kilometers of the railroad track, and 80 shunting systems.

The transfer will halve transit charges and cargo shipments via the Saryagash station on the Uzbek border will grow, Sarsenov said.

Yet the transferred railroad lines require repairs, and trains cannot go faster than 40 kilometers per hour in some places. Many stations need repairs, too, Sarsenov said. Repair expenditures are preliminarily estimated at about 1 billion tenge (146.63 tenge/$1).

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