Vahan Martirosyan urged the media to be objective when covering the construction of the North-South transport corridor

ArmInfo. Vahan Martirosyan,  Minister of Transport, Communications and Information Technologies of  Armenia, on September 7 after a government meeting in a conversation  with journalists urged the press to objectively and truthfully  enlighten everything connected with the construction of the  North-South transport corridor.

According to the minister, according to the rumors spread in the  press, $ 150 million was spent on the 31 km of the route. In fact, as  Vahan Martirosyan stated, $ 70 million was spent on the construction  of 31 km.  The rest of the money was spent on excavation work in the  Ashtarak-Talin section and Talin-Gyumri. Also, work was carried out  on concreting the road at 11 km. "These sections of the road have not  yet been commissioned," the minister explained. Meanwhile, the  minister recently stated that cracks were found on the section of the  Yerevan-Artashat highway of the transport corridor "North-South". As  explained by Martirosyan, the maintenance contract with the  construction company of the Spanish "Corsan Corviam" was not  completed in this connection, the Ministry of Transport demanded  restoration. Meanwhile, comments related to the quality of  construction works of the Spanish company in Armenia, sound not the  first time. Back in July 2015, former head of government Hovik  Abrahamyan said that the Spanish construction company has become a  real evil for the North-South motorway. "There are some problems with  this company and I do not know with whom else: They say there is no  money, they were simply taken away," Abrahamyan instructed.

The construction of the highway "North-South" with a total length of  556 km will provide access to the Black Sea and European countries  through the territory of Armenia (Meghri-Kapan-Goris-Yerevan-  Ashtarak-Gyumri-Bavra) and Georgia. The $ 1 billion investment  program is aimed at securing the connection between the north (the  border with Georgia) and southern Armenia (the border with Iran)  through transport communications that meet high international  standards and access to world markets. The road will be covered with  concrete. To implement the project, Armenia raised a loan from the  Asian Development Bank in the amount of $ 500 million. The Eurasian  Development Bank will provide another $ 150 million. The Armenian  side also attracted 60 million euros from the European Investment  Bank for the implementation of the project. The construction of the  corridor is planned to be completed in 2019. Under the "North-South"  program, the Armenian government calculated the preliminary savings  of $ 2.5 per hour for each passenger and $ 1 per hour for  transporting a ton of cargo. As the authorities of Armenia expect,  the program will allow the country in the future to mitigate the  consequences of the blockade on the part of Azerbaijan and Turkey, to  play the role of a transit state in the freight transportation of the  countries of the region, and also to join the Black Sea ring highway.

To note, on June 27 at the budget hearings in the parliament Gagik  Grigoryan, the first deputy minister of transport, communications and  information technologies of Armenia, stated that the North-South  highway is being built ahead of schedule. According to him, instead  of the planned 17.3 billion AMD, already 24 billion AMD have been  allocated. The work on the first tranche (Tranche 1), envisaged for  the Yerevan- Artashat and Yerevan-Ashtarak sections, has been  completed almost completely, while the work of Ashtarak-Talin  (Tranche 2) is still underway. In the third section (Tranche 3) of  Talin-Gyumri, excavation work is carried out and a trial laying of  concrete is under way.