Azerbaijan Spends Over $600 Million on BTK’s Georgian Section

BAKU - Azerbaijan announced it has allocated USD 611.5 million (1435 million GEL) for the construction of the Georgian section of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway as of July 1, 2016, since the start of financing of this project by the country’s State Oil Fund (SOFAZ), reported Trend News Agency on July 23.

According to the agreement signed between the Azerbaijani and Georgian governments, the funds were transferred to Marabda-Kartsakhi Railway through the International Bank of Azerbaijan.

The Marabda-Kartsakhi Railway was created to design, construct, rehabilitate, reconstruct and operate the Marabda-Turkish border railway section and relevant infrastructure projects.

In total, Azerbaijan allocated a loan of USD 775 million (1819 million GEL) for the construction of BTK’s Georgian section.

SOFAZ finances the project in accordance with the Azerbaijani President’s Decree of February 21, 2007.

The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway is being constructed on the basis of a Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish intergovernmental agreement. It is planned to be commissioned by late 2016.

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.

By Eka Karsaulidze