China's OBOR Initiative and Kazakhstan National Road Reconstruction
(June 5, 2018) When tenders for surveying and mapping equipment in the road reconstruction of the 764 km Taldykorgan-Ust-Kamenogorsk State Road closed, CHC Navigation has become the supplier of GNSS equipment for five of the six sections along the road that links the regional capitals of East Kazakhstan and Almaty. Five different building contractors in their respective sections are now using CHCNAV i80 GNSS receivers for road construction.
The road reconstruction project is associated with China's "One Belt One Road" (OBOR) initiative and Kazakhstan's domestic economic stimulus plan "Nurly Zhol". Therefore, it's not merely a major project that CHCNAV is involved in, but also a significant program with multinational influence.
In October 2013, China's president Xi Jinping unveiled the initiative of jointly constructing the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road, calling for the integration of the regions into a cohesive economic area through building infrastructure, increasing cultural exchanges, and broadening trade. The Belt plan consists of three proposed belts in the north, central and south, which lead to the EU, the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean respectively.
The Taldykorgan-Ust-Kamenogorsk State Road is a critical part of the North Belt which connects China and Europe through Central Asia and Russia, as well as a compulsory component of the "Nurly Zhol" which in the Kazakh language means "Bright Path". In November 2014, Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of Kazakhstan, announced the domestic stimulus policy "Nurly Zhol" as the country's response to China's OBOR initiative. The plan covers the development of infrastructure in seven areas, and the construction of transportation is of the highest priority.
The wide-scale use of CHCNAV GNSS technology and i80 GNSS receivers in Kazakhstan's national infrastructure construction plays an important role in promoting the coverage and spread of China's BeiDou Navigation System along the OBOR. Over the years, CHC Navigation has proactively responded to the calling of OBOR, providing high-precision GNSS equipment, as well as GIS, UAV, Mobile Mapping, Precision Agriculture, and other solutions to the infrastructure construction in OBOR countries.