ArmInfo. On January 19, RA Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructures Suren Papikyan held a video meeting with Pan Jinre, Deputy General Director of the Chinese company Sinohydro Corporation, which is a contractor for the construction of a road section from Talin to Gyumri within the framework of the third tranche of the North-South transport corridor construction project.
According to the press service of the RA Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructures, during the meeting the parties discussed issues related to the construction of a 46.2 km section of the road from Talin to Gyumri.
Suren Papikyan stressed the need to accelerate construction work and carry it out at a high-quality level. Speaking about the importance of the consolidation of human and technical resources, the minister noted that the obstacles caused by the epidemic are surmountable, and the necessary working conditions have been created for Chinese builders. The interlocutors also touched upon technical and financial issues arising during the implementation of the program, expressed their readiness to solve them by joint efforts in a constructive atmosphere. Recall that Chinese builders have previously suspended their participation in the project due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Armenian government had some complaints about the quality of the road built by Chinese contractors. As of December 2019, a section of 31 km was built and modernized, for which $ 70 million was spent. The rest of the amount was used to carry out earthworks at the Ashtarak-Talin and Talin-Gyumri sections. Also, work was carried out on the concreting of the road 11 km. Recall that the construction of the entire 556-kilometer North-South highway, which will stretch from Bavra to Meghri, is estimated at more than $ 2 billion. The construction of the corridor was originally planned to be completed in 2019, but now the deadline has been postponed by another 7-10 years. Under the North-South program, the Armenian government has calculated preliminary savings of $ 2.5 per hour for each passenger and $ 1 per hour for transporting a ton of cargo. As expected by the Armenian authorities, the program will allow the country in the future to mitigate the consequences of the blockade by Azerbaijan and Turkey, play the role of a transit state in the cargo transportation of the countries of the region, and also join the Black Sea ring highway.