The Government of Georgia has plans to improve linkage to North-South highway of Armenia, currently in progress, Mr David Dole, Country Director for Armenia at Asian Development Bank (ADB), told News.am at the hearings on the construction of the highway, held at the National Assembly of Armenia. 

The extension of the highway through Georgia to the seaport and resort of Batumi may require a lot of effort, given the mountainous terrain of Javakheti region of Georgia, which neighbors to Armenia and is mainly populated by ethnic Armenians.

“I’m in a regular contact with my ADB colleagues in Georgia, and they tell me that Georgian government has some plans to improve some sections of the road network that connect to North South road”, Dole told.

Apart from this, the ADB plans to conduct a study on regional connectivity, to find out which vital roads in the region may need improvement to facilitate transportation throughout the entire region.

The North-South highway is intended to be 495 km, upgrading the linkage to Georgia and Iran. The road will cut border-to-border distance by almost 60 km, due to construction of new bridges and tunnels instead of existing mountainous routes.

The estimated cost of the project is $967 mln, of which ADB’s commitment is $500 mln.

The route may be extended into Iran as well. As told by the first Deputy Minister of Transport of Armenia, Mr Arthur Arakelyan, the Government of the Islamic Republic has already started constructing a modern highway from a border town of Jolfa towards Armenia.