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BTK construction to be finished by March-April, 2017

World Materials 23 January 2017 16:09 (UTC +04:00)
Construction work on the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway is expected to be finished in March-April, 2017
BTK construction to be finished by March-April, 2017

Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 23

By Orkhan Quluzade – Trend:

Construction work on the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway is expected to be finished in March-April, 2017, Turkish media outlets reported citing Ahmet Arslan, the country’s minister of transport, maritime and communication.

The minister said that it was first planned to commission the BTK main line in 2012 but a number of trials between the contractors extended the construction period.

Arslan noted that after being commissioned, the BTK will become the shortest route to transship cargo from China to Europe.

"Kazakhstan plans to transport about 10 million tons of cargo via this line. At the same time, about 240 million tons of containerized cargo is annually exported from China, and if ten percent of the Chinese traffic were attracted to this overland route in future, the BTK would annually receive 24 million tons of cargo," Arslan said.

The BTK railway is being constructed on the basis of the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey intergovernmental agreement.

The peak capacity of the railway will be 17 million tons of cargo per year. At the initial stage, it will serve one million passengers and transport 6.5 million tons of cargo.

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