Azerbaijan, Baku, Aug.3 /Trend E.Ismayilov/
The State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) invested $326.9 million from the beginning of funding of new Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway to July 1, 2012, the Fund said on Friday.
It is stated in the information that this figure amounted to $47.1 million in the first half of the year.
Funds allocated to the Ministry of Transport of Azerbaijan by International Bank of Azerbaijan were directed to company Railway Marabda-Kartsakhi created for the design, construction, rehabilitation, reconstruction and operation of the railway Marabda-border of Turkey and the relevant infrastructure in accordance with the agreement signed between the governments of Azerbaijan and Georgia.
The railway Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway is constructed on the basis of Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish intergovernmental agreement.
Creation of a new rail link provides the construction, rehabilitation and reconstruction of railway Marabda-Akhalkalaki (except for the station), as well as the construction of Akhalkalaki to the Turkish border (Kartsakhi).
The reconstruction project Marabda-Akhalkalaki includes work in three phases: section -Marabda Tetritskaro - 29.2 kilometer, section of Tetritskaro-Tsalka - 49.7 kilometers, Tsalka, Akhalkalaki-- 74.1 kilometers.
Azerbaijan has allocated a soft loan worth $ 775 million for Georgia to construct and reconstruct the Georgian section of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway. Funding of the project by SOFAZ is carried out in accordance with the Decree of the President of Azerbaijan On the implementation of the project activities of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars.
It is planned to construct a new 105-kilometer branch railroad in the frame of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project. In addition, the section of the railway Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Marabda will be reconstructed in Georgia, which will increase its capacity to 15 million tons of cargo per year. It is planned to build a place in Akhalkalaki for the transition of trains from the existing train tracks in Georgia to the European one.
Peak capacity of the corridor will be 17 million tons of cargo. This figure will be at the level of one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo at the initial stage.