Monday, December 19 2016 17:12

ArmInfo. Armenia seeks to become a transit country for making multimodal transportation of cargo from Europe to Iran and in opposite direction, Minister of Transport, Communications and IT of Armenia Vahan Martirosyan stated summing up the results of the year at the press conference on December 19.  The Minister recalled that on November 19 two cargo transporters were delivered to Poti (Georgia) by sea and then by railway to Armenia on Yeraskh station, from where they were delivered to Iran by trucks. The experimental transportation helped the Armenian side and its partners to analyze the problems arising on the way and try with joint efforts to overcome all the obstacles, which affect time and speed of the transportation. ''The program on increasing amounts of international freight forwarding via territory of Armenia is one of the Transport Ministry's  priority tasks.  Cargo transporters were delivered from Poti to Yeraskh in 38 hours, which is a quite good result', he stated.  According to Vahan Martirosyan it is planned to launch the 2nd stage of the program soon to organize transportation from Iran to Europe.'' We hope that the program will become commercial next year'', Armenia's Transport Minister stated.

To note, within the project of multimodal transportation it is planned to organze delivery of Iranian goods by highway transport to Armenia (Yeraskh), from where the goods will further be transported by railway to Georgian harbors in Black Sea and further to Europe. By the Armenian President's decree a prompt political decision was made on construction of Agarak-Sisian asphalt automobile road instead of concrete one aimed at the rapid construction of that part of the road.  This section is the most difficult, it will allow to cut the road by 70 km and the time by 2.5 hours. It is planned to finish construction within maximum three years. In this case it will be managed to achieve maximum activity on this direction, as Armenia can offer opportunity of railway connection unlike other countries.  Modernization of the road from Sisian to Yeraskh will create the opportunity of using railway. The station in Yeraskh will be equipped with large terminals, in which Iranian businessmen are already interested. Delivery of goods to Yeraskh and further by railway station to Georgian Black Sea will be cheaper by 500 USD for 1 ton of cargo compared to the route offered by Azerbaijan.