TEHRAN- Iran’s Bank of Industry and Mine and the Russian government-owned development bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) signed a €1.2-billion-agreement on financing electrification of Garmsar–Incheboron railway project in Iran, IRIB reported on Thursday.

The contract was penned in the presence of the two banks’ senior officials to accelerate funding procedure of the named project by Bank of Industry and Mine, the report added.

The Iranian bank has previously supplied $1.5 billion of finance for electrification of Tehran-Mashhad railway and $1.8 billion for electrification of Tehran-Qom-Isfahan high speed railway.

Garmsar–Incheboron railway, with a length of 495 kilometers, links Garmsar in the north-central province of Semnan to Incheboron in the northeastern province of Golestan. It extends to Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan and links the Central Asia to the Persian Gulf and beyond.

This route’s severe gradient and being single track have made it a bottleneck for north to south corridor of Iran railways.

HJ/MA