Uzbekistan Quality Job Creation as a Cornerstone for Sustainable Economic Growth

Uzbekistan Quality Job Creation as a Cornerstone for Sustainable Economic Growth
While the road network is able to provide adequate access throughout the 
country, it suffers from a backlog of rehabilitation work. The design standards of 
roads throughout the country originated during the former Soviet Union. They 
are inadequate for the current and future traffic volumes and loads and do not 
follow road safety engineering principles and international good practice. The 
economic cost of road crashes is estimated at $63 million, accounting for 2.6% 
of GDP in 2014 (ADB 2017c). As indicated in Figure 2.1, road safety improved 
between 2005 and 2015, with road traffic deaths falling from 14.1 per 100,000 
people in 2005 to 11.5 per 100,000 people in 2016 (World Bank 2019a). 
Road conditions and road upgrading that does not meet requirements have 
contributed to the road accident incidences (Uzbekistan Statistics 2019). The 
former state joint-stock company (Uzavtoyul) in charge of road construction 
and maintenance has faced several issues, such as limited financing, shortage 
of maintenance machinery and equipment, and limited personnel for 
road building and maintenance works. Construction, reconstruction, and 
refurbishment projects prepared and implemented by Uzavtoyul have taken at 
least twice as long to implement as similar projects in Kazakhstan, for example. 
This has led to increased costs and the allocation of more resources for 
unexpected expenses. Projects with long implementation periods are delayed 
and postponed on frequent occasions, leading to even higher spending
and losses. 
Total road fund revenues have increased by an average of 22% in the last
6 years, from SUM1,119.8 billion ($138.7 million) in 2011 to SUM4,381.0 billion 
Sources: World Bank (2019a) https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.STA.TRAF.P5?view=chart 
(accessed 29 July 2019); and WHO (2018).