Minister: first section of the automobile transport corridor "North-South" will be commissioned in the near future

ArmInfo. The first section road transport corridor "North- South" will be handed over to the operation in the near future. RA Minister of Transport, Communications and Information Technologies Vahan Martirosyan stated this on September 13 in the National Assembly of Armenia, answering the question of the deputy from the ARFD faction Armenuhi Kuregyan.

The deputy raised the issue of remaining tranches of $ 150 million, which Armenia intends to attract from the Asian Development Bank to implement fourth and fifth tranches. Meanwhile, the MP continued, until work is completed even within the first tranche.

According to the Minister, work in the first tranche on the road segment of 31 km (Artashat-Yerevan, Yerevan-Ashtarak) is still ongoing. The contractor has to pay a little more than $ 3 million and complete at his own expense the previous shortcomings.

The project to create a transport corridor "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) via transport communications that meet high international standards and access to world markets. The road will be covered with concrete. For the implementation of the project, Armenia attracted a loan from the Asian Development Bank in the amount of $ 500 million. Another $ 150 million will be provided by the Eurasian Development Bank. 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 by 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.