Azerbaijan to increase capacity of BTK railway to 5 mln tonnes of cargo per year with additional investment - Aliyev

BAKU. Oct 24 (Interfax) - Azerbaijan plans additional investments in the development of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway in 2022-2023, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said.

"The volume of bulk cargo transportation between Azerbaijan and Georgia increased by 75% this year [...] We want to increase the throughput capacity of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway to five million tonnes of cargo per year. For that purpose, Azerbaijan will invest additional funds this year and next year. All funds have been already prepared, and we have started this process, as there is a great global demand of transport routes running through the Caspian Sea, Georgia and Azerbaijan through the neighboring states," Aliyev said at a joint briefing with Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili in Tbilisi on Monday.

The new transport routes comply with the interests of all countries they stretch through, both from geopolitical and general viewpoints, he said.

"In this regard, the increase of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway's capacity to five million tonnes per year and the cargo flow increase from Central Asia and in general from Asia to and from the West via the Georgian ports, dictates a new reality, and we should be ready for it," Aliyev said.

Azerbaijan plans to increase the capacity of the Baku International Sea Trade Port from 15 million tonnes per year to 25 million tonnes per year, he also said.

"All relevant orders have been provided, the funds will be allocated. The work in on transport issues between Azerbaijan and Georgia should be coordinated, as our projects ought to be completed simultaneously. In order to become a transit country we definitely need to have good relations with neighbors because no country can become a reliable transit state without good relations with neighbors. Our friendly, brotherly, partnership relations with Georgia provide us such opportunities," Aliyev said.

The BTK railway was put into operation on October 30, 2017. The project included the construction of the Kars-Akhalkalaki railway stretching 98 km long, including 68 km running on the territory of Turkey and 30 km on the territory of Georgia, and the reconstruction in Georgia of the Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi segment, 183 km long. Azerbaijan financed the construction of the railway's Georgian part providing to Georgia two preferential loans totaling $775 million.

The total length of the BTK railway is 826 km. In 2021, the cargo flow going via the railway more than doubled compared with 2020 and reached 476,900 tonnes.

The Baku International Sea Trade Port was built in the settlement of Aliat on an area of 400 hectares. The port currently comprises a ferry terminal, a dry cargo terminal and a Ro-Ro terminal that were put into operation as part of the first stage of the construction project. The capacity of the port is 15 million tonnes of dry cargo and 100,000 containers.

At the next stage, the capacity of the port will be 25 million tonnes of cargo per year and one million containers.