Tbilisi-Kars Railway will Give New Impetus to Development of Tourism

The start of passenger transportation through the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) transport corridor will give new impetus to the development of tourism in Azerbaijan, national secretary of Azerbaijan in TRACECA and expert in transport and logistics Akif Mustafayev told Trend.az.

According to the expert, passenger transportation by BTK, the beginning of which is scheduled for the third quarter of 2019, will contribute to the development of tourism, as well as increase the incomes of the state budget of Azerbaijan.

Mustafayev pointed out that a test passenger train along the BTK railway corridor had recently arrived in Georgia from Istanbul, adding that the train will depart from Tbilisi to Baku.

“A special feature of the railway cars that will be operated by Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey are special self-adjusting wheels, which allow for automatically changing the track from a broad one to a narrow one without losing time,” the expert said.

The BTK railway, which opened in October last year, was built on the basis of an Azerbaijani-Georgian-Turkish interstate agreement. At the initial stage, the volume of freight will be at the level of 6.5 million tons of cargo, and up to 1 million passengers will be transported.

BTK allows to significantly shorten the time required for the delivery of goods from China to Europe through the territory of Azerbaijan, which makes this route particularly attractive.