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Ambassador: â€œPrice rise will not impact on fulfillment of Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway projectâ€

25 May 2011 09:19 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Habil Suleymanzadeh-APA. Price rise of Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway project is connected with increase of appropriate construction worksâ€™ price, Georgian ambassador to Azerbaijan Teymuraz Sharashenidze told APA.

To him, price of energy carriers, construction materials and communication means constantly increase: â€œThat is why, it was decided to consider initial estimated value of the projectâ€.

Despite price rise, Georgian ambassador expressed sureness that this factor would not impact on fulfillment of Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway project: â€œThe demanded funds have already been found and appropriate document had been prepared as well. The works are carried out in accordance with the graphic. As it planned, the railway will be opened until the end of next yearâ€.

Remind that, no amendments have been made in the agreement between the governments of Azerbaijan and Georgia on implementation of Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project. According to the document, the amount allocated to Azerbaijan for designing the site, construction, financing of the infrastructural facilities and other operations increased to 775 million dollars. These funds will be allocated to the designated bank in two tranches. The first tranche - U.S. $ 200 million will be allocated for 25 years at an annual rate of 1%, the second tranche - U.S. $ 575 million for 25 years at an annual rate of 5%. The first tranche has already been presented to the Georgian side.

Note that, the total project cost after the recent developments on the project and additional funding has increased from 600 million to $ 1.2 billion.