Azernews.Az

By Sabina Idayatova

Implementation of the project on building the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway will continue, chairman of the Partnership Fund of Georgia Irakli Kovzanadze told journalists on Wednesday, Azerbaijani news agency Trend reported.

"The project was started long ago," Kovzanadze said. "Now it is important to keep the same pace and schedule. This was confirmed during the Georgian prime minister's visit to Baku."

According to him, Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway will turn into the most powerful infrastructure project for Georgia's economy and for the entire region.

"The challenge is to ensure maximum throughput of the highway. According to reports, Central Asia and China already have experience of dealing with this volume of goods [transported] to Europe," Kovzanadze said. He believes the potential of both Baku-Tbilisi-Kars and Georgian railways will be fully used for the purpose.

Earlier Georgian PM Bidzina Ivanishvili said that after the commissioning of the BTK railway, cargo transportation via Georgian railways may be reduced. But after Ivanishvili`s first official visit to Azerbaijan on Dec.26-27, 2012, he retracted saying that "it was a premature statement" and that "in fact, there is no problem in this issue."

The BTK railway project aims to link directly the railway systems of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey to transport large amounts of cargo and passengers. The railway is being built in accordance with an inter-governmental agreement reached by the three countries and is expected to be fully commissioned in 2014.

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.

Azerbaijan has allocated a loan worth $775 million for the construction of the Georgian section of the railway. Funding for the project from the State Oil Fund is carried out in accord with the 2007 presidential decree on taking measures within the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project.