Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Azerbaijan's Transport Ministry plans to fully commission the new international sea trade port in the Alat district by the end of 2015, Deputy Transport Minister Musa Panahov told Trend Agency last week.

He said it is planned to put the ferry terminal of the new port into operation in August 2014.

"Transfer of existing Baku international sea port from the capital will be carried out by the end of 2015," Panahov stressed.

A new port at the Alat settlement in Baku's Garadagh district is currently under construction by the Complex Construction Directorate under the Transport Ministry.

Construction work which started in November 2010 is carried out in three stages. The first phase of the project involves the construction of two ferries and three cargo berths for receiving containers and conventional bulk carriers; the second phase of the project envisions the construction of three additional cargo berths, and the third one concerns the construction of two more cargo berths.

In the first stage, the port will be capable of handling up to 10 million tons of cargo; in the second stage, its capacity will reach 17 million tons of cargo, and in the last stage, the port will handle 25 million tons of cargo.

In addition to a logistics center, a free economic zone will be created in the territory of the port in the future. Construction work will cost the Azerbaijani government more than $1.1 billion.