Georgia, Tbilisi, Jan. 9 / Trend N.Kirtskhalia /
Implementation of project on the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway will continue, chairman of the Partnership Fund of Georgia Irakli Kovzanadze informed journalists.
"The project was started long ago. Now it is important to keep the same pace and schedule. This was confirmed during Georgian Prime Minister's visit to Baku," Kovzanadze said.
According to him, the project will turn into the most powerful infrastructure project for Georgia's economy and for the region as a whole.
"The challenge is to ensure maximum throughput of the highway. According to reports, Central Asia and China already have experience of dealing with this volume of goods to Europe. I think the facilities of both Baku-Tbilisi-Kars and the Georgian railway will be fully utilised for this purpose," Kovzanadze said.
The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway is being constructed within a Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish intergovernmental agreement.
Azerbaijan provided a loan to the sum of $775 million for construction of the Georgian section. Funding for this project from the State Oil Fund is carried out in accordance with the presidential decree 'On implementation of measures within Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project', dating 21 February 2007. Since the beginning of funding the project and up until October 1, 2012 the State Oil Fund has allocated $403.3 million.
It is planned to construct a new 105-kilometre branch railroad as part of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project. In addition, the section of the Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Marabda railway will be reconstructed in Georgia which will increase its capacity to 15 million tons of cargo per year. It is planned to build a centre 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 in the initial stages.