Azernews.Az

Azerbaijan and Russia have voiced their readiness for partnership in implementing the $400 million Rasht-Astara railway project in the north of Iran, an Iranian official was quoted by the local media as saying.

Abbas Nazari, an Iranian Railways official, said the three countries are due to hold a meeting within the next month to decide on signing a contract with an international consultancy to start preliminary studies.

Construction of the 75-km railway is expected to take two years, Nazari said.

The Rasht-Astara railway will be a link in the North-South transport corridor, which envisages building a single railway from Europe through Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran to India and South-East Asia. Most of the operations under the project are to be carried out in Iran, which has no railway link to its border with Azerbaijan. Some of the work, worth $35-40 million, is to be conducted in Azerbaijan.

Earlier this year, the heads of Azerbaijani, Russian and Iranian railway administrations signed a document to establish a joint venture as part of the efforts to create the North-South corridor.

Initially, 6 million tons of cargo per year are to be transported through the route, with the volume expected to reach 20 million tons in the following years.

Currently, Russia transports about 20 million tons of consignments to India annually. After the North-South corridor is commissioned, this volume of cargo is to be transported by this route, which will reduce transportation costs by 30 percent.

The North-South project envisions creating links not only by railways, but also roads, sea and air.

The agreement on the project was signed by Russia, Iran, India and Oman in 2001. Azerbaijan joined the project in 2005.