Central Asian nations are planning to develop six new major transportation corridors in the next decade, according to a plan developed by the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) program.
The initiative, which is expected to cost upwards of $18 billion, constitutes CAREC's most concrete achievement so far in its 10 years of existence, said Johannes Linn, a scholar at the Brookings Institution and a CAREC special advisor. Linn spoke on January 8 at a forum called "CAREC: A Coming Force in Regional Affairs?" at the Central AsiaCaucasus Institute in Washington, DC.
"This is where CAREC is most advanced and shows the most potential for making a real difference on the ground," Linn said, referring to the transport development blueprint. The program will include both infrastructure investments and smoothing border-crossing procedures like customs and immigration.
About half of the funding is expected to come from the countries involved. The other half will come from international financial institutions, especially the Asian Development Bank, under whose auspices CAREC operates. The plan was agreed upon at a CAREC ministerial conference in Dushanbe in November. While Linn noted that the plan currently finds itself still at the point of "good intentions," he stressed that "the framework is there and the commitment is there" from the participating governments.
CAREC now includes Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Both Russia and Turkmenistan have been invited to join, and Turkmenistan's new government has expressed interest in doing so, Linn said. Russia, however, has been more reluctant to join, possibly because the Kremlin is uneasy about CAREC's close affiliation with the ADB. Russia is not a member of the bank, in which China, Russia's competitor for influence in Central Asia, plays a large role. "It's not entirely clear to me what the obstacle is, and why Russia is not participating," Linn said, adding that there is "some indication" that Russian leaders may pursue membership after the coming presidential elections.
Russia hesitancy may also be related to its own plans. Over the past year or so, Russia has been aggressively promoting infrastructure developments that would help Moscow retain a controlling interest in energy exports from the region. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
To help speed the creation of the envisioned infrastructure improvements, the ADB in mid December announced a $3 million grant to CAREC nations. The money aims to promote the harmonization of border-crossing procedures. CAREC members would be expected to kick in an additional $600,000 to fully fund the program.
The six transportation corridors specified in the CAREC development plan include both road and rail elements, and are "based on a careful analysis of the opportunities and requirements for transport and trade," Linn said. They are:
(1) from northwestern Kazakhstan to Xinjiang, to facilitate traffic from Europe to East Asia; (2) from Baku across the Caspian through Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and the Ferghana Valley in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan into Xinjiang, roughly following the old Silk Road; (3) from Siberia to Iran through eastern Kazakhstan, splitting into two parts one through Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, the other through Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan; (4) from Siberia to China through Mongolia; (5) from Pakistan to China through Afghanistan and Tajikistan, to make it easier to ship Chinese goods to South Asia; (6) from western Siberia to the Middle East and South Asia; through western Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and either Afghanistan and Iran or Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Uzbekistan, with its central location in Central Asia, represents a key to the success of any regional transportation project. And even though Tashkent since 2005 has had a rocky relationship with the United States and European Union, as well as problems with most international financial institutions, it recognizes the importance of the transportation corridor project, and is cooperating well, Linn said. [For greater detail on CAREC's development plans, click here].
"To [Uzbek officials] it's an improvement over what they've been told to do in the past, which is to improve all their border crossings. From their perspective, by focusing on a few key border crossings we can improve efficiency and also maintain their standards rightly or wrongly of maintaining control of various aspects of trade. To them, that makes this approach attractive," he said.
In addition to financing, CAREC's role will be to monitor progress among the various projects. "The countries and the international organizations will work together in insuring that in these corridors improvements are systematically carried out, whether it's infrastructure or border crossing/transit facilitation measures," Linn said.
Editor's note:
Joshua Kucera is a freelance journalist based in Washington, D.C.
