ASHGABAT (TCA) — President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov on January 16 inspected the course of construction of Turkmenbashy international port on the Caspian coast, which is to become the main sea gate of the Central Asia region, the State News Agency of Turkmenistan reported.
The new seaport will have annual throughput capacity of 17 million–18 million tons and will handle cargoes arriving from Asian and Pacific countries and from European countries via Russian, Azerbaijani and Iranian ports.
The cost of the project is more than 1.5 billion US dollars. The construction is expected to complete in December 2017.
The Turkish Gap Inşaat company is the general contractor of the project, which employs more than 5.3 thousand people including 4.9 thousand Turkmen and 377 foreign specialists.
The Turkmenbashy International Seaport project will construct ferry, passenger and container terminals. The seaport complex will include general cargo, bulk cargo and polypropylene terminals, as well as shipbuilding and repair yards.
Biological treatment equipment will be installed in each terminal for the protection of the environment of the Caspian Sea. The project is being implemented in accordance with Green Port international standard.
International ferry and passenger terminals will be able to serve 300 thousand passengers and 75 thousand trailers per year. The container terminal will have an average annual capacity of 400 thousand TEUs. A multimodal logistics park will provide services for storage and combined processing of container cargoes, delivered by air, road and railways, as well as loading to sea transport and vice versa.
The new port will also help increase the number of tourists visiting the Avaza national tourist zone on Turkmenistan’s Caspian coast.