Snake wine helps keep border traffic flowing
As he waved a bottle of clear spirits containing red berries and the carcass of a small snake, the Kyrgyz border guard’s sign language was very clear: next time truck driver Cai Chaojun crossed from China, he should bring more of the same medicinal drink.
Such demands from underpaid officials for contributions in cash or kind are just one of the difficulties facing people who carry goods or do business across the borders of Central Asia.
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Poor road conditions pose another problem for Mr Cai and his heavy truck on their weekly trips into Kyrgyzstan from Kashgar city in China’s far-western region of Xinjiang.
“The road is terrible,” he says. “Up in the mountains, when we have a load we sometimes cannot move at all because of all those big rocks and sand.”
Removing obstacles to trade, tourism and investment has become a central development challenge for Central Asia, a strategic and cultural crossroads that is one of the world’s poorest regions.
In a report last year, the United Nations Development Programme said closer co-operation among Central Asia’s former Soviet states could raise incomes by 50-100 per cent over 10 years.
Better transport links are top of the agenda for the Central Asia Regional Economic Co-operation forum (Carec), which groups Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Azerbaijan, along with China and Mongolia.
The 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union left many Carec members struggling to maintain their basic infrastructure. New borders cut across roads and railways, prompting scarce resources to be poured into new internal routes.
Now, however, making Mr Cai’s life easier is an international priority: the road he travels has been identified as an important corridor linking China with the Kyrgyz second city of Osh and reaching on to neighbouring Uzbekistan. Some progress has already been made. The road’s first 18km within Kyrgyzstan is smooth going, thanks to a Rmb60m ($7.6m, ￡4m, �6m) “rehabilitation” project last year paid for by China. There are plans for similar work on stretches near Osh. But much of the trip to the Chinese border remains a bone-jarring high-altitude trial for travellers and a harsh test for any truck and its load.
Still, the adoption last week by Carec of a “Comprehensive Action Plan” should help to secure funds to repair the most difficult stretches, cutting travel times by more than half.
Kubanychbek Mamaev, Kyrgyz deputy minister for transport, is hoping for loans from China and a deal that would see Beijing pay rehabilitation and maintenance costs in return for mineral rights.
Recent rehabilitation work on the highway between Osh and the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek were so successful, Mr Mamaev says, that he now has a new problem on the route: speeding.
“The only worry is how to reduce the number of accidents,” he says.
As Mr Cai’s snake wine experience suggests, however, repairing roads will be only half the battle. Carec is also seeking to smooth cross-border traffic by addressing such “software” problems as poorly run borders, divergent transport rules and unpredictable tariff regimes.
Attempts to smooth traffic between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, for example, have faced a number of obstacles.
For a few days after the introduction of high-tech equipment at one customs post, trucks were “just flying across the border”, says an Asian Development Bank official.
“But then [border officials] started to realise they were not making any money and things started to break down,” he says.
Similar problems could threaten the gains from construction of a planned new customs post on the Osh-Kashgar road that is to be largely funded by Beijing.
Travellers already contend with multiple checkpoints
