Ukrainian company to build Akhalkalaki railway station

The Joint Stock Company Marabda-Kartsakhi railways tender commission has announced that Ukrainian company Kievgiprotrans was the only participant in the competition to build Akhalkalaki railway station. The Georgian side will study the Ukrainian proposal in the near future and will take a final decision on whether to allow the Ukrainian company to move to the next stage.

If selected, Kievgiprotrans should submit 5% of contract cost as a bank guarantee and thus receive permission to begin work. Akhalkalaki railway station should be big enough to handle 10 million tonnes of turnover in both directions, with the capacity to increase this to 15 million tonnes. The project should include more information systems, alarm systems, special facilities and infrastructure.

Construction should start in 2009 and finish in 2011. The first stage of the project would be the construction of special depot to change the wheels of carriages, which are currently Russian standard, into European standard.

The Karsi-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku railway project involves the rehabilitation of the Tbilisi-Akhalkalaki and Baku-Tbilisi tracks. An extra 98 kilometres of railway track will be built: 68 on Georgian territory and 30 on Turkish. The total cost of the project might be USD 0.5 billion.