Azerbaijan's Ministry of Transport and Switzerland's Stadler will sign a purchase and sale agreement on June 11 on new railroad passenger cars, head of the Public Relations Department of the Transport Ministry, Namig Hasanov told reporters on June 11.
Azerbaijan will buy some 30 new railroad passenger cars under this agreement, according to the department head.
"The new cars will be purchased under the state program for development of Azerbaijan's railway transport for 2009-2014," Hasanov stressed.
He underscored that this year is a deadline for implementation of the state program, but despite this, currently a new state program is under development and it is also likely to cover a five-year period.
The new passenger cars will be used after commissioning the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway as well. It is planned to put this railway into operation in 2015.
The department head went on to add that the work carried out under this project is at the final stage both on Georgian and Turkish territory.
It is planned to construct a new 105-kilometer branch of the railroad as part of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project. In addition, the railway's Akhalkalaki-Marabda-Tbilisi section will be reconstructed in Georgia, which will increase its capacity to 15 million tonnes of cargo per year. It is planned to build a post in Akhalkalaki for the transition of trains from the existing tracks in Georgia to the European ones.
The peak capacity of the corridor will be 17 million tonnes of cargo per year. This figure will be at the level of one million passengers and 6.5 million tonnes of cargo at the initial stage.