Tuesday, November 13 2018 15:25

ArmInfo. The "North-South" road must be built, Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced on November 13 at the National Assembly of Armenia.

According to him, the road should be built according to the highest  quality standards. Nikol Pashinyan stressed that groundwater is  underway, but there were problems associated with asphalt pavement,  due to the low quality of cement and concrete. As a result,as the  acting PM noted the part of the road that has already been built,  does not correspond to the quality indicators. Research is currently  underway, and a further decision will be made.

To recall earlier, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called for more  attention to be paid to the quality of road construction. According  to him, the solution of this issue is directly connected with the  development of tourism, including the influx of Iranian tourists to  Armenia. "It is necessary to solve all the problems arising in this  area as quickly and efficiently as possible," the Prime Minister  noted.

To note, the Chinese company Sinohidro Corporation, which carries out  construction work on the Talin- Lanzhik road section, under its  responsibility, without testing the quality of the work performed,  carried out the concreting of a 1200-meter-long canvas, while 300  meters were to be concreted for testing. In this regard, at the  request of the RA Ministry of Transport, the work was suspended until  the results of the laboratory examination were obtained. If the  results of the examination do not meet the established standards, the  Chinese company must dismantle the road and begin to pour concrete  again. Violations are also recorded during the excavation work.  To  recall, the agreement with the company was concluded on December 9,  2015. The length of the road section should be 27.5 km. The works  must be carried out for 74 million euros, which were provided in the  form of a loan by the European Investment Bank with co-financing from  the RA government, as well as a grant from the European Union. It was  envisaged that this section of the road, construction of which began  in 2016, should be put into operation within three years, but the  problems that have arisen threaten the success of the project.  Earlier, even the director of the Armenian representative office of  the Asian Development Bank, Shane Rosenthal, stated that the cost of  building 1 km of the North-South road on the Ashtarak-Ladzhik section  would cost $ 3.5 million instead of $ 1.2 million. Rosenthal also  doubted that this project will be completed.

In 2018, $ 47 million was allocated to continue the construction of  the North-South transport corridor. The funds were raised in the form  of credit resources from the Asian Development Bank, the European  Investment Bank and the Eurasian Development Bank, and another 2.8  billion drams are to be received in the form of a grant from the  European investment bank.

Meanwhile, in late September last year, the then Minister of  Transport, Communications and Information Technologies Vahan  Martirosyan reported that, according to current calculations, the  construction of the entire 556-kilometer North-South highway, which  stretches from Bavra to Meghri, will cost more than $ 2 billion,  since only its southern section, between the cities of Artashat and  Meghri, the preliminary estimate will cost $ 1.5 billion. Meanwhile,  five years ago, in September 2012, when the construction of the  motorway began, the amount that representatives of the Armenian  government called was more than half as less - $ 962 million. Today,  $ 150.3 million has been spent and 23.14 million euros.

Under the "North-South" program, the Armenian government estimated a  preliminary saving 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 effects of the blockade by Azerbaijan and Turkey, to play the  role of a transit state in the freight traffic of the countries of  the region, and also to join the Black Sea Ring Road.