Azernews.Az

By Gulgiz Dadashova

The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway project will be in the focus of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey at the fifth meeting of the Trilateral Coordination Council on Friday-Saturday.

The sides will exchange of views on the reforms in the transport infrastructure, development of the relations between Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia, handling potential of transit cargo, current situation of the project and etc.

The Azerbaijani delegation is headed by Transport Minister Ziya Mammadov.

The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway is being built on the basis of the Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish inter-state agreement. Azerbaijan provided a loan worth $775 million for construction of the Georgian section.

Funding for this project from the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan is carried out according to a presidential decree on the 'Implementation of measures within Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project' dated February 21, 2007.

Some $431.3 million has been allocated since the beginning of the funding of the project and up until January 1, 2013.

Plans exist to construct a new 105 kilometer branch railroad within the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project. In addition, the Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Marabda railway will be reconstructed in Georgia which will increase its capacity to 15 million tons of cargo per year. It is planned to build a centre in Akhalkalaki for the transition of trains from the existing train tracks in Georgia to the European system.

Peak capacity of the corridor will be 17 million tons of cargo. This figure will initially be at the level of one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo.