Georgian minister to discuss country’s transit potential at conference in Baku

Georgian Regional Development and Infrastructure Minister David Shavliashvili departed for Baku, Azerbaijan.

He will take part in an international conference titled “The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway – new opportunities for development of the historical Great Silk Road.”

The Regional Development and Infrastructure Ministry said that Shavliashvili will speak at the conference about Georgia’s transit potential.

Several projects, including the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway project will be presented at the conference.

The BTK railway is being constructed in line with the Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish interstate agreement.

Azerbaijan’s State Oil Fund (SOFAZ) is financing the project in accordance with the Azerbaijani president’s decree ‘On implementation of measures on the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project’, dated Feb. 21, 2007.

The railway’s new 105-kilometer branch is being constructed as part of the project.

Aside from that, the railway’s Akhalkalaki-Marabda-Tbilisi section in Georgia is being reconstructed. This will increase its capacity to 15 million metric tons of cargo per year.

A station is also being built in the Georgian town of Akhalkalaki to move trains from the tracks used in Georgia to the European ones.

The railway’s annual highest capacity will be 17 million metric tons of cargo.

At the initial stage this figure will stand at 1 million passengers and 6.5 million metric tons of cargo. (Trend.az)