Non-stop road construction boom: Baku is preparing routes for transit flow Review by Caliber.Az

About two decades ago, large-scale road construction projects were kicked off in Azerbaijan with the involvement of considerable budgetary and borrowed funds. Since then, about 21,000 km of intra- and inter-district roads and international highways have been built and modernized, with access to the Russian, Iranian and Georgian borders.

Despite the fact that in the last three years, the vector of road construction has shifted to the Karabakh region, in 2023, according to the relevant orders of the president, hundreds of millions of manats have been allocated for the construction of road infrastructure in the north, south and west of the country. The chairman of the board of the State Automobile Roads Agency of Azerbaijan (AAYDA), Saleh Mammadov, told the media about the country's achievements in this sector the day before.

The most complex geopolitical processes in the world, literally over the last two or three years, have completely reformatted the traditional transport and logistics picture of the vast Eurasian space. In the conditions of the war in Ukraine, which has been going on for a year and a half, the countries of the European Union, Russia, China, the states of Central Asia (CA) and Türkiye are looking for alternative ways to transship goods along the West-East and North-South routes. At the same time, all conflicting parties strive to use the capacious transport potential of Azerbaijan, which is optimal for solving new problems of global trade.

These circumstances stimulate Baku to further expand and modernize its road network. It is appropriate to note here that, unlike many regional countries, which are only now embarking on large-scale road projects in light of the shift of international freight traffic to the chain of Middle Corridor countries, thanks to far-sighted state policy, Azerbaijan began to form key transit roads in the direction of Georgia Russia and Iran about 20 years ago.

“In general, over the past 20 years, about 21,000 kilometers of roads of various categories have been built, reconstructed and repaired in Azerbaijan: if in 2003 the length of roads of the first technical category was 115 km, then currently this figure is 1,025 km,” Chairman of the AAYDA Saleh Mammadov said in an interview.

As the head of the State Agency noted, from 2003 to 2023, 5,100 km of intra-district roads were built, reconstructed and repaired, connecting 2,210 settlements with a population of 6.2 million people.

During the reporting period, nearly five hundred new bridges and road junctions were also built, dozens of new road tunnels were laid, and about a hundred similar facilities were reconstructed. In particular, about eight years ago, the modernization of the 508-kilometer Silk Road route from Baku to the state border with Georgia was fully completed, and in 2018, the four-lane 204 kilometers Alat-Astara road was commissioned.

After the actual completion of the construction of basic highways of international importance - in the western, northern and southern directions, the most important development trend in recent years has been the reconstruction of inter-district roads and roads of local importance, mainly in the regions of the republic. And this work continues very actively.

“Today, when we talk about the activities in the road infrastructure sector, we mean not only the reconstruction of village roads, but also the construction of new ones connecting villages in each district,” points out S. Mamedov.

It should be noted that after a slight decline in the pace of road construction during the global oil crisis of 2014-2018, public investments in the maintenance and development of roads in Azerbaijan again dynamically increased in 2019-2023. Moreover, the driver here was budgetary investments in the revival of the road network of the Karabakh region liberated from occupation.

Thus, at present, in the liberated territories, the implementation of nearly two dozen road transport projects in difficult mountainous terrain continues at a rapid pace: bridges, tunnels and other road infrastructure with a total length of about 2,200 kilometers are being built. In particular, the total length of the 33 tunnels nearing completion exceeds 50 kilometers, and the 84 bridges on which work is still ongoing will total more than 12 kilometers. More than half of the planned roads and engineering structures have already been built, and active work is underway on a dozen other sections.

At the same time, the spearhead of the road construction vector today is aimed at the Eastern Zangezur economic region, designed to become the most important component of international routes - the Middle Corridor and the North-South ITC, and for these purposes, the construction of a 123.5-kilometer Horadiz-Jabrail-Zangilan-Agband highway of the first technical category is being completed. The road as a whole is four-lane, but part of it consists of six lanes, and by the beginning of October, 80% of the total work on this route had been completed.

In turn, the construction of the most important Khudaferin-Gubadli-Lachin highway, 56.4 km long, which covers over 30 settlements of Zangilan, Gubadli and Lachin districts, as well as a 14-kilometer road from the village of Khanlyg to the city of Gubadli, continues at an accelerated pace. The process of restoring the mountain highway (76 km) between Kalbajar and Lachin with 23 bridges over four kilometers long and 17 tunnels (13.3 km) is underway.

Engineering solutions of comparable complexity will be used on the 82 km long Toganaly-Kalbajar-Istisu road under construction, where the construction of the longest tunnel in the world is planned on the section of the Murovdag mountain range, and today the work on the construction of this route is 41 per cent completed.

The road boom in Karabakh continues: a month ago, from the reserve fund of the Azerbaijani president, provided for in the state budget for 2023, by order of the president, 20 million manats were allocated for the design and construction of a new Gubadli-Lachin highway.

A new wave of road construction boom covers not only the liberated territories, but also other regions of Azerbaijan. As an example, we can cite the recently completed reconstruction of three deformed sections of the Baku-Guba highway to the state border with the Russian Federation. And by the end of this year, construction work in the same direction on the M-1 highway, which is part of the North-South transport corridor, will be completed.

A 129 km section of this road will be tolled; the corresponding decree was recently signed by Azerbaijani Prime Minister Ali Asadov, and the tariff for travel on the road will be approved by the Tariff Council in the near future. In the same northern region of the country, on the 27th kilometer of the Gandob-Khachmaz-Yalama road to the state border with Russia, construction of a new road bridge in the village of Gudyalchay recently began. And at the southern end of the North-South corridor, major repairs of part of the M-3 highway will soon begin: Alat-Astara - the state border with Iran.

In order to at least approximately assess the scale of road construction work in various regions of the republic, it is enough to provide indicators for new initiatives, the financing of which has been approved in the last three months.

In particular, due to additional state budget revenues and financing from the reserve fund of the Azerbaijani president, in August-October 2023, the design and construction of inter-district highways with a total cost of 63 million manats was launched, which will ensure convenient and safe movement of almost 80,000 people living in 51 populated area of the country. These projects will be implemented in Siyazan, Imishli, Masalli, Gakh and Beylagan districts.