OREANDA-NEWS. January 19, 2010. At an extended sitting of the Kazakhstan’s Transport Ministry, Transport Minister Abelgazy Kusainov outlined the major tasks for the current year, reported the Official website government.kz.

Prime Minister Karim Massimov, also among those in attendance, instructed to accelerate development of the tanker fleet. “Given the growing [oil production] capacities and Kashagan coming on stream soon, we urgently need to expand the tanker fleet”, he emphasized.

The Ministry intends to have the Kazakh airlines put on the EU blacklist removed from the list by the end of the year, briefed Talgat Lastayev, Deputy Head of the Civil Aviation Committee. “We are getting ready to stagedly remove the carriers from the list during the year”, he said.

Besides, he told reporters following the sitting that “currently Air Astana airlines employ up to 90% foreign pilots; but plans are afoot to completely staff the carrier with Kazakh pilots by 2015”.

Transport Minister Abelgazy Kusainov briefed that “the overall number of passengers in 2009 grew by 4.2% y-o-y; freights transit totaled 15.2 million tons”. He also outlined tasks for the ministry for 2010. “In the realm of car roads, KZT 104 billion will be used to implement the West Europe – West China international motor corridor project… In the realm of civil aviation, we need to adopt a new legislation and keep on renewing the aircraft fleet… as far as water transport is concerned, plans are there to increase the national shipping company’s share in hauling of goods up to 65%”.

The Minister also said that “by the end of the year the agreement will be finalized with the Asian Development Bank to obtain a loan to construct the Aktau-Beineu motor road. Full-scaled works on the road will start in 2011”. He reminded that in December agreement had been reached with ADB to obtain a loan of USD 400 million to overhaul the motor road.

Besides, the Minister informed that in the current year two new tankers are to be completed. According to him, the Kazakh trade fleet is dominating the shipment market at the Caspian Sea. “Kazakh tankers ship over half of the oil transshipped at the Aktau sea port”.