OFFICIAL NEWS
PRESIDENT ILHAM ALIYEV BECOMES FAMILIAR WITH CONSTRUCTION OF BAKU-RUSSIAN BORDER HIGHWAY
President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev got familiarized Friday with the 111-134 km stretch of the highway running through Davachi region, being built under the “Baku-Russian border road reconstruction project”.
The 208-km long Baku-Russian border road is the part of the North-South transport corridor established in 2000. This road is of strategic importance for developing the trade among South Asia nations, Iran, Russia and Western Europe countries.
The project covers Khyzy region as a part of the Absheron economic zone, and Guba-Khachmaz economic zone including five regions. In total, the project covers 10 percent of the territory of Azerbaijan. The project was developed by Belgium’s ECO consulting firm. The highway is scheduled to be completely reconstructed to become the first-class road.
The Government of Azerbaijan signed a $100-million loan agreement with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in September 2005 to fund the reconstruction of the 28-29 km part of the road. The Czech Export Bank lent $180m to Azerbaijan to build the 6-45km stretch (crossing the Haji Zeynalabdin Tagiyev settlement) and 89-198 km stretch of the highway. Tamalsu-ECO-AY Consulting will be responsible for the technical oversight of the road construction. The deals with contractors are expected to be inked within short time.
The Head of State was informed about the performance capabilities of the road. This part of the road is 25 km in length.
President Aliyev stressed the need for building other high-level highways, and gave recommendations to do high-quality work and complete construction in due course. The Head of State pointed out that the road would meet high standards.
Mr. Aliyev emphasized the need to repair the existing bridges along the road.
Then, President Ilham Aliyev was curious about the reconstruction work in Davachi, and emphasized the importance of taking actions to boost the tourism potential in the region.