North-South corridor to open access to Persian Gulf, India

/By AzerNews/

By Aynur Karimova

If the North-South corridor, which links North Europe with South-West Asia, operates at full capacity, this will allow some European, Central Asian, Caucasus countries, as well as several regions of Russia to get access to the Persian Gulf and India.

This remark was made by Javid Gurbanov, the Head of Azerbaijan Railways CJSC, at a meeting with the board member of Iran Railways, Abbas Haj Fathaliha, on November 2.

Gurbanov spoke about the projects being implemented by Azerbaijan Railways and the current tasks. He said that the North-South corridor will strengthen the trade relations between the Caspian Sea countries and Black Sea ports.

"The North-South corridor will allow intensifying the railway transportation between Europe, South Asia and Middle East," he noted. "It will significantly increase the income from local and transit railway transportation."

Fathaliha, in turn, expressed hope that the North-South transport corridor will positively affect the economic cooperation between Azerbaijan and Iran.

The sides also discussed the issues related to designing the bridge through the River Astarachay, determining the source of financing the Rasht-Astara railway and other technical issues.

The North-South railway will serve as a bridge to connect the railways of Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia.

This project envisages the establishment of a border railway bridge between Iranian Astara and Azerbaijani Astara, as well as laying an 8-kilometer-long segment on Azerbaijani territory.

The railway’s capacity will stand at 1.4 million passengers and 5-7 million metric tons of cargo per year, according to the preliminary estimations. As many as 22 tunnels and 15 bridges will be built throughout the railway.

The volume of cargo transportation through the corridor will amount to 6 million metric tons at the initial stage and will reach 15-20 million metric tons in the future.

The North-South railway project is expected to bring great profits to Azerbaijan and Iran. The railway lines of the two countries will be linked before late 2016.