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Armenia To Build Strategic North-South Highway

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  • Armenia To Build Strategic North-South Highway

    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.

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