TEHRAN – Some 300 kilometers of highways and main roads have been inaugurated across Iran on the occasion of Government Week (August 24-30), an official with the Construction and Development of Transportation Infrastructure Company said.

“On the occasion of Government Week, 300 kilometers of roads and highways went operational in the west, south and east of the country with the aim of developing international transit and promoting tourism in different provinces,” Mohammadreza Kadkhoda-Zadeh said.

According to the official, over 750 kilometers of highways, main roads, and freeways are also going to be completed by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (late March 2024), IRNA reported.

“The physical progress of most of the transportation projects underway is above 70 percent and these projects are of great importance in terms of organizing traffic in various provinces,” Kadkhoda-Zadeh said.

The official put the investment needed for completing the mentioned projects at about 180 trillion rials (about $361 million).

Back in August, Iranian Deputy Transport and Urban Development Minister Kheirollah Khademi said 293 kilometers of freeways were going to be added to the country’s road network in the first half of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-September 22).

According to Khademi, the mentioned freeways are parts of five prioritized projects namely Tehran-Shomal, Manjil-Roudbar, Isfahan-Shiraz, Tabriz-Soufian, and Maragheh-Hashtroud.

“Inaugurating these routes, in addition to increasing the length of the country’s freeway network, will eliminate an important part of the traffic bottlenecks in the region,” Khademi said.

EF/MA