"The average time for shipments from the port of Batumi to the border with Azerbaijan will be reduced by 4 hours," - the Asian Development Bank said in an annual report, noting that the bank made strategic investments in 2021 to help boost the region's economy and trade.

$ 50 million tied up by the ADB in $ 500 million worth of the Georgian Railway’s green bonds in 2021 is part of this investment.

It should be noted that after the modernization of the railway, by 2024 the capacity of the railway in the Georgian corridor will increase from 27 million to 48 million tons.

The Georgian Railway started the modernization project in 2011 and was supposed to be completed in 2019, but it was halted. The investment cost of the project is 260 million Swiss francs.

As the Deputy Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia Guram Guramishvili stated, another 1-1.5 years are needed to complete the railway modernization project.

“With the new configuration route, we can travel to western Georgia and vice versa. The main essence of the modernization project is to increase the throughput at the crossing station - it will simplify the slope and, consequently, the speed of the trains will increase and the travel time will be reduced,” - Guram Guramishvili explained.

The main features of the project are:

Construction length

• New railway section - 38 km.

• Reconstruction of the existing railway line - 23 km

Maximum slope: 17.5% instead of the existing 29%

Maximum radius of curves - 400 meters, instead of the existing 200 meters.