The Ministry of Finance of Kazakhstan is taking a number of measures to reduce traffic jam on the Kazakh-Uzbek border, Kun.uz reports.

A dynamic activity of foreign trade of Uzbekistan and neighboring countries has been observed in the past two years. This is due to the increase of freight traffic from Europe and China to Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. From January 2017 to September 2018, the growth of relocatable freight transport increased 3,5 times. Thus, 5,8 thousand trucks crossed the border in 2017 and 21,7 thousand in September 2018.

"The existing infrastructure does not allow an equal and accelerated passage of increasing vehicles' flow through existing checkpoints and leads to the formation of congestion", the Ministry of Finance of Kazakhstan noted.

A heavy traffic is observed at the checkpoint "B. Konysbaev". Every day, up to 150 vehicles pass through it, despite the fact that its passage capacity is 75.

The Public Revenue Committee of the Ministry of Finance of Kazakhstan is taking systemic and operational measures to reduce congestion at the Uzbek border. In particular, a new technology is going to be implemented for the smooth and accelerated arrangement of traffic flows between border checkpoints.

In October, a meeting will be held between the heads of the Customs Services of both sides to resolve the current challenging situation. The customs authorities coordinate the daily exchange of operational information on congestion at the checkpoints and collaborate with each other to establish the accelerated passage.

At the end of the year, the reconstruction and technical equipping of the checkpoint "B.Konysbayev" will kick off. It will facilitate the increase of passages up to 1000 vehicles per day.