25.09.2023

On September 25, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev held a meeting to discuss the priority tasks of reforming the the railway sector.

 Over the past 7 years, the number of industrial enterprises in our country has reached 110 thousand. The production of more than 2 thousand new types of products was launched. Last year, the volume of exports increased 1.6 times and reached $19 billion. As a result, cargo turnover in our country increased by 30%.

 The most convenient and cheapest transportation for countries as Uzbekistan, which have no direct access to the world’s oceans, is the railroad transportation. However, today, only 5% of products in the domestic market and 45 % of export cargoes are transported by rail. In other words, JSC “Uzbekistan Temir Yullari” cannot compete with the transportation of goods by automobile transport.

Over many years, the industry has not been reformed nor has a modern management system been introduced. At the same time, due to external factors, transportation and logistics costs have increased. Consequently, both the income of the joint stock company and the quality of services remain low.

In particular, the shortage of carriages and the obsolescence of the railcar fleet were mentioned. Under the current tariffs and management model, the private sector participation in the industry remains difficult. The revenues of most stations cannot cover the costs. The level of digitalization remains insufficient. The population is dissatisfied with the level of service at stations, limited access to central stations, inconvenient location of parking lots, corruption in ticket sales, conditions and service in carriages.

Having analyzed these problems, the meeting discussed proposals for reforming the industry.

Thus, it is planned to transform the joint stock company “Uzbekistan Temir Yullari” into a holding company and introduce modern management in it, organize separate enterprises by dividing the functions of infrastructure maintenance, freight transportation and logistics, passenger transportation, and station management.

The Head of our state approved these proposals and gave additional instructions to improve efficiency in the industry. The need to ensure transparent accounting, attract foreign specialists and investments to the enterprises without state guarantees was emphasized.

It was decided to create attractive tariffs for the private sector, provide entrepreneurs with loans for the purchase of carriages. The possibility of building modern shopping malls around the central stations and auctioning areas within the stations themselves was pointed out. The vacant areas around the railroad stations could be allocated for logistics and manufacturing projects.

The task was set to establish electronic registration of cargo documents, install GPS on carriages and launch an online warehouse based on the “single window” principle in cooperation with the Ministry of Digital Technologies.

The importance of inventorying non-core assets of “Uzbekistan Temir Yullari” and channeling the funds from their sale to improve the railway infrastructure was emphasized.

Due to the fact that most of the freight trains enter the capital and regional centers, the intensity of traffic at the stations is increasing. In this regard, the need to consider the possibility of relocating freight stations outside of cities was indicated. This will allow reducing freight traffic in the cities and attracting additional investment in the districts.

The Transport Prosecutor was instructed to ensure that all railway crossings are regulated for the safety of citizens and traffic.

The issues of personnel training and quality of service were also raised.

The Head of state underscored that the result of reforming the sphere should be the creation of a railway system that would satisfy the population and entrepreneurs.

The officials in charge presented a report on the issues discussed at the meeting.