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Azerbaijan allocates nearly $ 490M for construction of Baku-Tbilisi-Kars Georgian section

Business Materials 25 July 2014 15:04 (UTC +04:00)

Baku, Azerbaijan, July 25
By Emil Ismayilov - Trend:

Some $489 million (as of June 30, 2014) have been allocated since the beginning of financing a project of creating a new Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway by the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ), according to a statement posted on SOFAZ's official website.

The funds were transferred to the "Marabda-Kartsakhi railway" through the International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) in accordance with the agreement signed between the governments of Azerbaijan and Georgia. The "Marabda-Kartsakhi railway" was created for the design, construction, rehabilitation, reconstruction and operation of the railway section Marabda - border with Turkey and related infrastructure.

Some $ 24.9 million were allocated to implement SOFAZ's project in the first six months of 2014, according to the report.

The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway is being constructed on the basis of Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish inter-state agreement.

Azerbaijan has allocated a loan worth $775 million for construction of the railway's Georgian section. Azerbaijan's State Oil Fund (SOFAZ) carries out the funding of the project in accordance with the decree of Azerbaijani president 'On the implementation of the project activities of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars' dated February 21, 2007.

It is planned to construct a new 105-kilometer branch of the railroad as part of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project. In addition, the railway's Akhalkalaki-Marabda-Tbilisi section will be reconstructed in Georgia, which will increase its capacity to 15 million tons of cargo per year. It is planned to build a post in Akhalkalaki for the transition of trains from the existing tracks in Georgia to the European ones.

The peak capacity of the corridor will be 17 million tons of cargo per year. This figure will be at the level of one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo at the initial stage.

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