Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec.5
By Emil Ismayilov - Trend:
Azerbaijani Railways CJSC is carrying out work on attracting additional volume of cargoes, in particular from Central Asia, a source at the company told Trend on Dec.4.
The source made the remarks in response to a question about the reasons of reducing the volume of cargo transportation via Azerbaijani railways in 2014.
Around 17.9 million metric tons of cargo was transported via the rail transport in Azerbaijan in Jan.-Oct. 2014, compared to 19.2 million metric tons in the same period of 2013, according to Azerbaijan's State Statistical Committee.
The source confirmed the existence of this tendency and added that Azerbaijani Railways CJSC is carrying out intensive work on attracting additional volume of cargoes from Kazakhstan and other countries.
The source said the commissioning of Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) will also allow to increase the volume of cargo transportation via Azerbaijani railways and promote the development of this mode of transport.
"However, the work on attracting cargoes is already underway before the commissioning of BTK," said the source.
A test train is expected to run on the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway by late 2014 and it is planned to complete the implementation of the project in 2015. Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India show interest in this project.
The peak capacity of the corridor will be 17 million metric tons of cargo per year. At the initial stage, this figure will be equal to one million passengers and 6.5 million metric tons of cargo.
Earlier, Azerbaijan's Transport Minister Ziya Mammadov said that after the three years of operation of BTK, the volume of cargo transportation via this railway is expected to hit three million metric tons, while after five and ten years of operation, this figure is forecast to exceed five million metric tons and 10 million metric tons respectively.
Edited by CN
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Emil Ismayilov is Trend Agency's staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @Emilsmail