Austria intends to send a freight train that will run to Kazakhstan via the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway, Javid Gurbanov, head of the Azerbaijan Railways CJSC, told reporters in Baku Feb. 9.
He said that cargo carriers are greatly interested in BTK and to date, more than 500 containers have been transported via the railway.
“The trade turnover between Turkey and China exceeds 500,000 containers,” he said. “China, Central Asia are interested in BTK. Austria’s freight train is expected to run to Kazakhstan in the first week of April. Among European carriers, Austria will first use BTK.”
The official opening ceremony of the BTK railway was held in Baku Oct. 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 one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo.
