Speaking to Uzbekistan 24, Tursunov said the tender procedures for the project are scheduled to be fully completed by the end of March 2027.
The announcement follows a September 21 meeting at which President Shavkat Mirziyoyev reviewed a presentation on major transport and logistics projects. The meeting also resulted in instructions to begin practical work on several other toll road projects.
These include the Tashkent–Samarkand toll road, the Tashkent–Charvak toll road and a road connecting Namangan region with the mountain pass through the Namangan–Pungan route.
Tursunov said particular attention would be paid to construction quality and costs, as well as to making greater use of locally available resources. The projects are also expected to involve modern construction materials and technologies, with specialists from the Transport University and young researchers taking part.
He said the experience of Uzbekistan’s first toll road, linking Urgench and Khiva, had prompted further plans to develop alternative routes between major cities.
“After we built the first toll road on the Urgench–Khiva route, it was well received by most users, and a separate instruction was issued to build alternative roads connecting our major cities over shorter distances,” Tursunov said.
According to Tursunov, the number of vehicles in Uzbekistan has grown from around 500,000 in the early years of independence to nearly 6 million over the past three decades.
The increase in vehicle ownership has made expanding road construction, upgrading two-lane roads to four-lane routes and ensuring safer, uninterrupted traffic among the sector’s key priorities, he said.
Tursunov added that rising incomes and greater mobility among the population were also increasing the need for new roads and expanded transit corridors.
