Progress on Qazvin-Rasht-Astara (Iran) – Astara (Azerbaijan) Railway Project ج¶ 5th ECO High-Level Working Group Meeting

The 5th ECO High-Level Working Group Meeting on Qazvin-Rasht-Astara (Iran) ,“ Astara (Azerbaijan) was held on 17 December 2019 in Tehran, I.R of Iran, hosted by the Iranian Railways (RAI). It was inaugurated by Deputy Director General of International Department of Railways of Iran (RAI) Mrs. Mojgan Kordbache. Director for Transport & Communications of ECO Secretariat Mr. Ahmad Saffari, in his statement, esteemed the Qazvin-Rasht-Astara (Iran) ,“ Astara (Azerbaijan) railway project as one of ECO’s best performing projects thus enabling potential economic gains and social benefits for project’s multiple parties. The Delegations from the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Islamic Republic of Iran updated the Meeting on progress on project’s two completed segments and useful exchange of views on operations’ issues at Astara (Iran) ,“ Astara (Azerbaijan) resulted in concluding that a bilateral working group be soon established to address the operations’ matters.

Further, the Meeting pinpointed acute aspects of ongoing construction on the 162km Rash-Astara railway segment, of which engineering studies were duely completed, land acquisition for Rasht-Astara has started and double track substructures (9km) have been so laid down that one rail stretch links Rasht with Anzali whereas the other with Astara. Following with the decisions of the 14^th Meeting of Heads of ECO Railway Authorities/8^th Railway Committee Meeting (20-21 June 2019, Dushanbe) the Meeting instructed the Secretariat to explore best international practices of other countries in implementing public-private partnership infrastructure projects relating to transcontinental corridors like the Qazvin-Rasht-Astara (Azerbaijan)-Astara (Iran) railway project.