Azernews.Az

By Nigar Abbasova

The State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) invested some $630.2 million in the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway project as of January 1, 2017.

Last year, the fund allocated $41.9 million for the implementation of the project.

In line with the agreement signed between the governments of Azerbaijan and Georgia, the International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) transferred the financial means to the Marabda-Kartsakhi Railway Company, which deals with construction, rehabilitation and operation of the line that will connect Georgian and Turkish railroads.

Azerbaijan allocated a loan of $775 million for the construction of the railway's Georgian section. The IBA acts as an agent bank for the organization of credit and provision of bank service on behalf of the government of Azerbaijan.

SOFAZ finances the project in line with the Azerbaijani president's decree 'On implementation of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project activities', dated February 21, 2007.

Being constructed under a Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish intergovernmental agreement, BTK is expected to expand multi-modal transportation opportunities, ensure the growth of passenger and freight transportation and boost the transit potential of the regional countries. The peak capacity of the railway will be 17 million tons of cargo per year. At the initial stage, this figure will be one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo.

The project is expected to go into service in mid-2017. The implementation of the project has a noteworthy significance in terms of economic efficiency, speed, time, security and reliability.

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Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova

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