The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway project has changed the transport map of Georgia, Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili said.
He made the remarks addressing the ‘Strategic Outlook: Eurasia’ panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 23.
Kvirikashvili said that the international projects being implemented and the geographic location of Georgia formed the basis and at the same time added value to the economic activity in the country.
The BTK railway project connected Georgia with China, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Europe, Kvirikashvili noted.
“A train from China can directly reach Georgia in nine days,” he added. “This is a great achievement not only for Georgia, but for all states involved in the project”.
The official opening ceremony of the BTK railway was held in Baku on October 30, 2017. The BTK railway was constructed on the basis a Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish intergovernmental agreement.
The railway’s peak capacity will be 17 million tons of cargo per year. At an initial stage, this figure will be 1 million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo. (Trend/Business World Magazine)