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.