Press Officer of road construction company Azeravtoyol Anar Najafli
says
more than half of Azerbaijan’s roads are in need of critical repair.
Najafli says there are 20,000 kilometers of vehicle roads in the country, of which only 50% have been covered by asphalt.
In 2016, 30 roads comprising a total of 500-600 kilometers were repaired. In 2017, more than 40 roads will be repaired.
“It’s impossible to cover all the roads with asphalt, especially because a number of the roads pass through mountainous terrain. And then there are places where it’s not even advisable to put down asphalt, because of tectonic activity, landslides and the volume of precipitation in the region”, explained Najafli.
Najafli further explained the expenses associated with road repair – repairing one kilometer of road can often cost as much as 200,000 AZN ($118,627). Moreover, there are many factors that can raise the cost of road work, for example mountainous terrain and other extenuating circumstances. For this reason, the company has no precise price-list.
Economist Vuqar Bayramov
says
that Azerbaijan is a world leader in terms of money spent on road construction and repair. In 2012, for example, one kilometer of road ‘cost’ on average 18 million AZN ($10,675,000).
In comparison, Russian roads generally cost up to 17.6 million USD per kilometer, while in the USA, a similar stretch of road costs around 5.9 million dollars, while in the EU – 6.9. In China, costs may be as low as 2.2 million dollars per kilometer.
