Baku, Azerbaijan, July 25
By Emil Ilgar – Trend:
Iran’s Bank of Industry and Mine and Exim Bank of China signed a contract on financing a railway project worth $1.5-billion, IRNA reported July 25.
According to the report, the heads of the banks, Ali Ashraf Afkhami and Sun Ping signed the agreement in Tehran to finance the electrification of the Tehran-Mashhad railway.
Afkhami said that after 16 months of negotiations, the sides have reached an agreement.
Previously, the General Director of Iranian Railways Saeed Mohammadzadeh told Trend that during the last four years, Iran has been annually investing $1 billion in railroad projects and for the next five years, the figure would reach $1.5 to $2 billion annually.
Iran has announced in January that Iran and China are currently in talks over a contract worth of 1.7 billion euros on a project for the electrification of the Tehran-Mashhad double track railway (926-km in total).
Currently, the highest possible speed on this route is 160 Km/h which will be increased to 200 km/h after the electrification project is completed, Mehr reported.
Based on predictions, the railway will annually carry 33 million passengers and 10 million tons of freight by 2032. This load of passenger and freight traffic will put the Tehran-Mashhad railway on the list of top ten most commuted railway lines in the world, the report added.