Regional railway construction to be discussed in Georgia
The completion of building the Georgian section of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway will be discussed in a meeting in Georgia.
Azerbaijani Transport Minister Ziya Mammadov said the country would send its delegation to the meeting of experts.
The minister said a first train on the BTK route is expected to be dispatched by the end of 2013.
The BTK 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.
In 2007, Azerbaijan allocated a $200 million loan to Georgia for 25 years, with an interest rate of one percent, to finance the construction and rehabilitation of the Georgian section of the railway. An agreement to allocate additional $575 million to the Georgian side was signed in July 2011. These funds were allocated for a period of 25 years, at a rate of five percent.
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