Failure of Central Asian Countries to Replace Aging Infrastructure Becoming Economic, Social and Political Threat to Their Future, ‘Bugin’ Portal Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 10 – Much of the basic infrastructure in Central Asia, including housing, plumbing, electricity, and transportation routes, was built in Soviet times, is not being replaced or in some cases even repaired, and is rapidly becoming a threat to the economic, social and political stability of the region, according to the Bugin portal.

            At present, the portal says, “the average age of critical infrastructure [in Central Asia] exceeds 30 to 40 years” because the post-Soviet states have lacked the resources to replace it and spend an increasing share of their resources simply on trying to keep it repaired, a task they are rapidly falling behind on (bugin.info/detail/ekonomika-iznosa-kak-vet/ru).

            The situation is especially dire in the production of electricity. “The average age of thermal electric power stations in Kazakhstan is 55 years, in Kyrgyzstan, 45, and in Uzbekistan about 40.” As a result, less power in generated than is needed, and much that is generated is lost before it can be delivered to where it is needed.

            Transportation arteries suffer from similar aging. “In Kazakhstan,” Bugin says, “more than 30 percent of the national highways need repair, in Kyrgyzstan, the figure is about 40 percent and in Tajikistan as much as 45 percent.” Railways are also in trouble: the average age of locomotives now exceeds 65 percent. And airports haven’t been updated for two decades.

            Housing infrastructure is also aging with repairs falling behind the consequences of that. Stoppages and accidents have increased across the region by 25 percent over the last five years. Nearly two-thirds of the plumbing in housing needs to be repaired, and the situation is getting worse as now 30 to 40 percent of the housing stock in cities was build “more than 40 years ago.”

            These problems are causing many potential foreign investors to decide not to put money into Central Asia, decisions that by themselves are only adding to the problem. And at the same time, they are reducing the competitiveness of Central Asian economies and even their ability to serve as transit zones.

            The aging of infrastructure and the inability of governments to address this problem given the enormous costs of doing so is leading to a decline in the standard of living first of all in the cities and then, because of problems with water distribution, in the villages of the countries of this region.,

            As a result, the portal says, aging infrastructure is “becoming one of the main macro risks over the next 15 to 20 years,” given that “the costs of maintaining aging infrastructure are growing faster than GDP and the need for investment in these sectors exceeds the budgetary capacity” of all the countries there, even when their economies are growing.

            And Bugin concludes: “Aging infrastructure is becoming a factor that could limit the region's ambitions … The question is not whether the countries of the region will be able to update infrastructure, but whether they will do so before dilapidation becomes an irreversible macroeconomic constraint.”