One more corporation, Avtodor, will probably emerge in Russia to upgrade highways of federal significance and make them toll roads.
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
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Transport Ministry Enters Big Road
One more corporation, Avtodor, will probably emerge in Russia in the nearest future as a national operator of the road net. Its concern will be to upgrade highways of federal significance and make them toll roads. By 2012, Avtodor is expected to complete construction and put in order the federal roads of the country, spending at least $164.5 billion for this purpose.
“The matter at stake is the company that will concern itself with upgrading roads of federal significance under the terms of concessionary agreements and making them the toll roads,” said a source with the Transport Ministry.
According to the source, Transport Minister Igor Levitin has the Avtodor concept already, it will be further elaborated during two weeks and the minister will submit it to President Putin in the next move. If Vladimir Putin backs up the Avtodor idea, the State Duma will get the respective bill already by this year-end.
The overall length of Russia’s roads equals 1.145 million kilometers, including the federal roads of 47,000 kilometers. The length of the latter will double by 2020. The Transport Ministry says a running kilometer of federal roads averages $3.5 million, i.e. the overall construction budget will reach $164.5 billion.
But the cost of a kilometer is constantly rising, so the budget for constructing federal roads till 2020 will probably reach $250 billion, another source forecasted.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 27, 2007
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