TEHRAN (Dispatches) - Railways of Iran, Azerbaijan, Russia and Belarus have signed an agreement to expand North-South international transport corridor.
The MoU was signed by heads of Iranian, Azeri, Russian and Belarus railway companies, on the sidelines of the 67th meeting of Council for Rail Transport of the Commonwealth and Baltic states.
During the meeting, the senior railway officials also discussed construction of Rasht-Astara railroad.
It was announced in the meeting that the volume of transport through the corridor has increased by 21.6% in the first nine months of the year reaching 4.7 billion metric tons.
Containers transport has witnessed 2.4-fold increase reaching more than 7,000.
It was also said in the meeting that test-transfer from India to Russia through Iran and Azerbaijan has been done by Russian RDY Logistika company.
Iran plans to invest $25 billion over the next 10 years in the modernization and expansion of its railway network, stretching out its railroad line to 25,000 kilometers by 2025 from under 15,000 kilometers now.