The railroad to connect the two Iranian cities of Qazvin and Rasht has made 81% physical progress and is scheduled to come on stream during the second month of the next Iranian year (starting March 21), an official with the Construction and Development of Transportation Infrastructure Company affiliated with the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development said.
“The track-laying of the 164-kilometer-long project will be completed by the end of the current Iranian year. So far, 14.6 trillion rials (close to $325 million) worth of investments have gone into Qazvin-Rasht Railroad that needs an additional $55.64 million for completion,” Ali Akbar Mardi was also quoted as saying by IRNA.
The rail project is a missing link in the International North-South Transport Corridor, which is aimed at connecting Northern Europe with Southeast Asia.
INSTC will connect Iran with Russia’s Baltic ports and give Russia rail connectivity to both the Persian Gulf and the Indian rail network. This means goods could be carried from Mumbai in India to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas and further to Baku. They could then pass across the Russian border into Astrakhan before proceeding to Moscow and St. Petersburg, before entering Europe.
The corridor would substantially cut the travel time for everything from Asian consumer goods to Central Eurasia’s natural resources to advanced European exports.
When completed, the INSTC is expected to increase the volume of commodities currently traded between Iran and Azerbaijan from 600,000 tons to 5 million tons per year, dramatically increasing bilateral trade from the current $500 million per year.
The railroad to connect the cities and Rasht and Astara is another INSTC missing link.
Iran’s Deputy Roads and Urban Development Minister Asghar Fakhrieh-Kashan said the Rasht-Astara project will be jointly implemented by Iran and Azerbaijan, each providing 50% of the required finances, noting that Azerbaijan will fund $500 million and Iran will invest the same amount.
A freight train arrived in Iran’s northern border city of Astara from Russia’s St. Petersburg on Feb. 8, marking the inauguration of a cross-border strand of INSTC.
The train made its journey through Azerbaijan, using the so-called Astara-Astara Railroad, which connects the Iranian city of Astara with an eponymous city from across the border.
The train’s six wagons carried 55 tons of MDF sheets.
According to director general of the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways’ International Affairs Office, Abbas Nazari, the Astara-Astara route will officially be inaugurated in the first month of the new Iranian year in the presence of Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev.
“IRIR is also in talks with Azerbaijani and Russian rail officials to run passenger trains from Astara to Moscow on this route, in addition to commercial trains,” Nazari said.
The Astara-Astara Railroad runs 8 kilometers in Azerbaijan up to the border from where it extends 2 km to Iran’s port city of Astara.
The project also includes a bridge on Astarachay River, which stretches along the border. Tehran and Baku are working to connect their railroads as part of the INSTC project, which is aimed at connecting Northern Europe with Southeast Asia.
