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ARMENIA TO BUILD STRATEGIC NORTH-SOUTH HIGHWAY
by Lilit Gevorgyan
Global Insight
August 28, 2012
Armenia's Minister of Transport and Communications stated on 27 August
that preliminary work started on construction and renovation of the
North-South highway at the beginning of this year. Construction work
is set to start in the coming weeks which will see around USD2.7
billion invested in the 550-km highway. The Asian Development Bank
(ADB) is to provide part of the necessary funding, according to a
January 2010 agreement on extending a USD500-million loan to the
Armenian government. In April when preliminary work started on the
highway, Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan said the programme was not
an ordinary infrastructure development but: "a project of strategic
importance, that will change lots of things in the country."
Significance:The new highway is to meet international standards
and will help to improve transport communication between northern
and southern parts of the mountainous country. However, due to its
geographic location the Armenian government hopes that the highway will
also serve as a throughway between Iran and Georgia, the only two out
of Armenia's four neighbours that have open borders with the country,
unlike Turkey in the west and Azerbaijan in the east, which have sealed
their borders with Armenia for nearly 20 years. The road will also
have some military importance, improving links to the south of the
country where it links with the ethnic Armenian self-declared republic
of Nagorno-Karabakh locked in a decades-long dispute with Azerbaijan.
by Lilit Gevorgyan
Global Insight
August 28, 2012
Armenia's Minister of Transport and Communications stated on 27 August
that preliminary work started on construction and renovation of the
North-South highway at the beginning of this year. Construction work
is set to start in the coming weeks which will see around USD2.7
billion invested in the 550-km highway. The Asian Development Bank
(ADB) is to provide part of the necessary funding, according to a
January 2010 agreement on extending a USD500-million loan to the
Armenian government. In April when preliminary work started on the
highway, Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan said the programme was not
an ordinary infrastructure development but: "a project of strategic
importance, that will change lots of things in the country."
Significance:The new highway is to meet international standards
and will help to improve transport communication between northern
and southern parts of the mountainous country. However, due to its
geographic location the Armenian government hopes that the highway will
also serve as a throughway between Iran and Georgia, the only two out
of Armenia's four neighbours that have open borders with the country,
unlike Turkey in the west and Azerbaijan in the east, which have sealed
their borders with Armenia for nearly 20 years. The road will also
have some military importance, improving links to the south of the
country where it links with the ethnic Armenian self-declared republic
of Nagorno-Karabakh locked in a decades-long dispute with Azerbaijan.