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Vietnam interested in rail transport co-op with Azerbaijan

Business Materials 1 November 2016 16:49 (UTC +04:00)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 1

By Seba Aghayeva – Trend:

Vietnam Railways, the state-owned operator of the railway system in Vietnam, is interested in cooperation with Azerbaijan with a view to more efficient use of rail transportation capacities, Azerbaijani Ambassador to Vietnam Anar Imanov said in an interview with Trend Nov. 1.

“It is necessary to emphasize the importance of international transport projects, including the North-South corridor and the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway, which are currently being implemented,” the ambassador said.

“The implementation of these projects will make it possible to reduce the time and costs for transportation of goods, including from the countries of South-East Asia to Europe and back by several times,” he added.

The implementation of these projects will facilitate the delivery of goods from Vietnam to Azerbaijan and vice versa, and thus will create favorable conditions for the rapid development of trade relations, said Imanov.

At present, Vietnam mainly uses sea transport corridors to deliver its cargo, the diplomat said.

The North-South corridor is meant to connect Northern Europe to South-East Asia. It will serve as a link connecting the railways of Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia.

It is planned to transport five million tons of cargo via the North-South corridor per year at the initial stage and later to increase the figure to more than 10 million tons.

The BTK railway is being constructed on the basis of the Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish intergovernmental agreement. Its peak capacity will be 17 million tons of cargo per year. At the initial stage, this figure will be one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo.

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