Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

Iranian official has said the volume of cargo transportation through the Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran railway, in the coming year will reach 10 million tons.

Mohammad Mousavi Hashemi Golpayegani, Iran’s ambassador to Turkmenistan said a minor volume of cargo transportation on this railroad was linked with a number of technical problems.

He went on to say that one problem, is that the Iranian railroad has a narrow track, while Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan have wide track.

Golpayegani noted that currently there have technical work carried out to solve this problem, adding that if resolved, the cargo transportation will be accelerated and the number of trains will also be increased.

He informed that at the moment, cargo transportation is carried and Turkmenistan is supplied with cement from the port of Bandar Abbas, while Central Asia sends the necessary loads to this port.

He further announced that there is a joint document between the two countries, envisaging the need to bring the volume of cargo transportation to 10 million tons which was signed during Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s last visit to Turkmenistan.

The Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran railway was launched last December. Being part of the North-South international transport corridor the railway was constructed with the assistance of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Islamic Development Bank (IDB). It is 925 kilometers in total, with 85 kilometers in Iran's territory, 700 kilometers in Turkmenistan and the remaining 140 kilometers in Kazakhstan.

Preliminary estimates showed that annually 3-5 million metric tons of cargo will be transported via this route. In the long term, the transportation will increase to 10-12 million metric tons.

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Sara Rajabova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @SaraRajabova

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