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Iran in talks with 6 countries for rail transit

Business Materials 26 June 2015 12:34 (UTC +04:00)

Baku, Azerbaijan, June 26

By Fatih Karimov - Trend: Iran is in talks with six countries for resolving executive problems and removing concerns about rail transit via Iran, said Hossein Ashouri, an official with the Iranian Railways Company.

Several meetings have been held with railway officials of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Pakistan, Iran's Fars news agency quoted Ashouri as saying June 26.

It is projected that the volume of rail transit via Iran will be increased by 150 percent in the current Iranian fiscal year, which began on March 21, he noted.

In December 2014, the Incheh Borun border point in Golestan Province was connected to Turkmenistan's railway, he said, adding that Russia and Kazakhstan will also benefit from the project.

It is hoped that railways of Iran and Afghanistan will be connected via the Khaf border point, he said.

Meanwhile, railways of Iran and Iraq will be connected via the Shalamcheh border point in the next two years, he added.

Some 35 million metric tons of goods were transited via the country's rail network in the past year, a 6.8 percent rise year on year, Ashouri said.

Despite sanctions and economic recession, the volume of transited goods did not change notably compared to the past year, he added.

Minerals got the lion's share of the transited goods, accounting for 63 percent of the total transit volume, followed by steel, cement, and petrochemical products.

Iranian Roads Maintenance Organization official Mohammad Javad Atrchian said in April that over 12.3 million metric tons of goods were transited via Iran in the previous Iranian fiscal year.

The transited consignments mostly consisted of fuel, construction materials, home appliances, cotton and vehicles.

Shahriyar Afandizadeh, the Iranian deputy transport and urban development minister has said that Iran has the capacity to transit 40 million metric tons of goods annually.

Edited by CN

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