Azerbaijan to Fund 50% of INSTC Railroad Project

The Rasht-Astra Railroad project will be carried out by Iran and the neighboring Azerbaijan, each providing 50% of the required finances.

Announcing the above, Deputy Minister of Roads and Urban Development Asghar Fakhrieh-Kashan added that Azerbaijan will fund $500 million and Iran will invest the same amount in the project, the ministry’s news portal reported.

Fakhrieh-Kashan noted that when the Rasht-Astra Railroad becomes operational, a main section of the International North-South Transport Corridor will be completed and cargo can be transited from India and China to Central Asia, Azerbaijan, Russia and Europe through Iran.

The INSTC project is a major transit route designed to facilitate the transportation of goods from Mumbai in India to Helsinki in Finland, using Iranian ports and railroads, which the Islamic Republic plans to connect to those of Azerbaijan and Russia.

Another strand of the corridor, the railroad connecting Iran’s northwestern city of Astara to the eponymous Azerbaijani city has been newly completed.

It was scheduled to be inaugurated last week, Roads and Urban Development Minister Abbas Akhoundi announced. However, there was no report on the inauguration as of Sunday.

Qazvin-Rasht is another missing link in INSTC. When completed, 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 t