Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 3
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
The Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran railway was inaugurated during a ceremony with participation of the heads of three states.
The event of commissioning the railway took place on the Turkmen-Iranian border with the participation of Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov of Turkmenistan and Hassan Rouhani of Iran.
Agreement on the construction of the Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran railway was signed in 2007, while construction work began in 2009.
Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran railway is part of the North-South international transport corridor. A project, called the North-South, is being implemented on the basis of an agreement signed in 2007 by Turkmenistan, Iran and Kazakhstan.
The railway length is 925 kilometers in total, with 85 kilometers on Iran's territory, 700 on Turkmenistan's territory and the remaining 140 on Kazakhstan's territory.
Preliminary estimates show that originally 3 to 5 million metric tons of cargos per year will be transported via this route. In the long term the transportation will increase to 10-12 million metric tons.
There can also be a modal redistribution of transit goods: a shift of freight from motor vehicles, sea or air transport to railway transport.
The project is being implemented with an assistance of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Islamic Development Bank (IDB).
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Umid Niayesh is Trend Agency's staff journalist
Follow him on Twitter: @UmidNiayesh