Chairman of the Roads Committee of the Ministry for Investments and Development Mereke Pshembayev announced this today at a briefing in the press center of the Government.

According to Mereke Pshembayev, in the period of 2015-2016 within the framework of the Nurly Zhol program 1,300 km of motorways were reconstructed with the transfer to the I and II technical categories.

"The traffic on the Western Europe-Western China transit corridor, the Astana-Temirtau, Almaty-Kapshagai, Kapshagai-Balpyk bi, Beineu-Shetpe and Kokshetau-Petropavlovsk sections are completely open. The construction of the largest bridge crossing in Central Asia through the Irtysh river in Pavlodar with a length of 12 km has also been completed," the Committee chairman said.

This year, the construction work continues on the rolling projects Center-South at the Temirtau-Karaganda section, within the Center-East project at the Astana-Pavlodar-Semey-Kalbatau, Beineu-Aktau, Aktobe-Atyrau, Kapshagai-Taldykorgan, Astana-Petropavlovsk and Uralsk - Kamenka with a total length of 1.2 thousand km.

Along with rolling projects, six projects have been launched at the expense of budget funds: Beineu-Akzhigit, Shchuchinsk-Zerenda, Taskesken-Bakhty, Usharal-Dostyk, Osinovsky Pass, Kostanai-Denisovka, with a length of 511 km.

Also, in order to develop the country's transport potential, together with the leading international financial institutions, it is planned to implement 12 projects with a length of more than 3 thousand km, which will ensure the growth of economic activity in the regions.

Under the program, it is planned to repair about 1,500 km annually until 2020.

As noted by Mereke Pshembayev, until 2020, it is planned to gradually introduce a charging system on the sections of highways that have been reconstructed, with a length of 6,500 km. By 2020, the annual fee will be about 30 billion tenge.

"In general, based on the results of the work carried out, it is planned to improve the condition of 90% of the republican highways, to increase the share of the I and II technical roads to 50%, which will increase the carrying capacity of the loaded sections of roads and freight 2 times, and reduce the time spent on the road by 1.5 times," Mereke Pshembayev said.

Answering the question about the social significance of the implementation of the Nurly Zhol program, the chairman of the Committee noted that more than 70,000 jobs had been created since 2015, while the creation of 25,000 is planned for 2018. At the same time, the share of Kazakhstan's content is 90%.