Over 150,000 kilometers out of the 170,000 kilometers of general roads in Ukraine require overhaul, repair or reconstruction, Director of the road development department at the State Agency of the Automobile Roads of Ukraine (Ukravtodor) Serhiy Tsepelev has said.

He said that Ukraine currently has seven international and national transport corridors and despite having a high transit index, Ukraine does not use the half of its transport potential due to the unsatisfactory condition of its roads.

"The density of Ukrainian roads is 4.6 times less than on average in Europe, although the real obstacle for increasing transit volume by road and profit from them is the unsatisfactory state of 90% of automobile roads in Ukraine," he said at the Ukrainian Forum of Infrastructure Development (UFID) in Kyiv last week.

He said that almost 40% of state roads are not in line with modern durability requirements and over 51% - with evenness requirements.

"As for local roads: sometimes there are no roads at all," he said.

He said that the state of most constructed installations is poor– only 46% out of 16,200 automobile bridges and overpasses meet requirements, with the rest in the critical condition.

Tsepelev also said that the increase in transport flow, the burden on roads and the serious underfunding of the sector over the past 10 years has led to the critical state of road infrastructure.

He said that the national budget for this year foresees UAH 2.7 billion for the maintenance and the development of the road network, which is twice less than the minimum requirements of the sector for minor repair and maintenance alone.