Azerbaijan, Baku, Aug.3 / Trend, E. Ismayilov /
Works on opening railway transport on the route of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars will be completed in the first half of 2012, the Azerbaijani Transport Minister Ziya Mammadov said during at the meeting of the Coordinating Council in Baku today.
He said despite the previously agreed terms of the project's implementation, the side are working to accelerate the process and complete most of the work before late 2011.
One of the most complex processes is laying the tunnel between Georgia and Turkey, which will pass through the mountain terrain. The length of the tunnel will be 4.5 km.
Also, during the Coordinating Council's meeting, the sides stated that before late 2010 it's planned to complete 50 percent of work - both construction of a new railway station and the rehabilitation of 160-km section in Georgia. Mammadov said that recently roughly 25 units of new technologies have been delivered to speed up works on the territory of Turkey.
Peak capacity of the corridor will be 17 million tons. Initially, this figure will be 1 million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo, Turkish Transport Minister Binali Yildirim said.
He said by 2030, the three-fold increase is forecasted in cargo transportation through this corridor. Within implementation of this project 34 percent of the works have been already done in Turkey. Till late 2010 this figure will amount to 66 percent, Yıldırım said.
It is planned to construct a new 105-kilometer branch railroad as a part of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway. About 76 kilometers will stretch on the territory of Turkey, 29 km - Georgia. Moreover, a railway section Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Marabda will be reconstructed in Georgia to increase capacity up to 15 million tons of cargo a year.