Azernews.Az

Accession of other countries to the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars rail project will lead to regulation of tariffs and an increase in freight traffic, the deputy head of Azerbaijan Railways Gurban Nazirov said on Friday, Trend news agency reported.

"Kazakhstan has formally appealed its intention to participate in this project. Accession of other countries will mean the use of special provisions and a reduced tariff," Nazirov said.

The new railway aims to link directly the railway systems of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey to transport large amounts of cargo and passengers. The railway will provide transportation of cargo via Georgia to Europe.

Nazirov said that a positive trend is being observed in freight traffic this year. "In particular, 21.2 million tons of cargo were transported over 11 months. Compared to last year the plan was executed by 104 per cent," Nazirov said.

According to him, an increase in freight traffic by 20-30 per cent is expected next year.

The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway will be fully commissioned in 2014, while a first test train from Azerbaijan to the Turkish border is planned to be dispatched by late 2012, Azerbaijan Railways chairman Arif Asgarov said earlier.

The railway will increase the flow of containers and other types of cargo from Asia to Europe. Its throughput capacity will peak at 17 million tons of cargo per year. Initially, the capacity will be 6.5 million tons of consignments and 1 million passengers.

The railway is gaining more and more interest of Central Asian countries and may become an even larger regional route.

Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan stated their interest in implementing the Navoi-Turkmenbashi-Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, while Kazakhstan is closely involved in creating a link to the railway running from Turkey to Georgia.