In conclusion, Mohammad Saeed-Nejad, Deputy Minister of
Road and Transportation and Managing Director of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Railroads elaborated on the development of rail transport in Iran as well as
growing cooperation between Iran and China.
He said, "During 23 years after victory of the Islamic
Revolution; that is, up to 1380 (2001-20), we had only bought 50 passenger
cars while that figure has been increased to about 365 railroad cars by now.
Some 1,000 cars were delivered by the end of last year (that is early 2006)
and 265 cars will join Iran’s rail fleet during the current year.
A good tiding for our people is that we are planning and
have allocated credits for purchasing 750 passenger cars during the current
year. Out of the said 750 cars, 50 cars are double-deck cars whose contract is
being signed today and 700 cars will be manufactured by three big railroad car
manufacturing companies.
We are also planning to manufacture and repair locomotives
inside the country in cooperation with big foreign companies. We have signed a
contract for manufacturing 200 locomotives and the contract is expected to be
finalized before the end of the current year.
Fulfillment of the said contracts will enable our railroad
fleet to handle 33.6 million passengers and about 50 million tons goods by the
end of the Fourth Economic Development Plan.
With regard to overhauling our fleet, it should be noted
that in line with a new policy stipulated by the Third Economic Development
Plan as well as the Fourth Economic Development Plan and other domestic laws,
the private sector will be encouraged to play a more active role in
overhauling railroad fleet.
As we said before, a contract has been signed with the
private sector for production of 66 railroad cars and a tender bid is being
held for production of 108 cars, again by the private sector.
Private sector’s investment will be supported by the
government through the banking system. During past Iranian year, 3,500 cargo
cars were purchased by the private sector and most of those cars have already
jointed our rail fleet and contracts for purchasing a similar number of cars
are expected to be signed during the current year.
According to current policies, we will increase share of
the private sector in passenger transport while ceding all cargo transport to
private entities.
With regard to railroad network, based on current
projections, major projects such as connecting cross-country railroad to such
big cities as Shiraz, Zahedan, Rasht and Kermanshah will approach final stages
and most of those projects will be made operational.
Also, 150 km of Bafq – Bandar Abbas railroad is double
track and out of 670 km of projected railroad, contract for building 250 km
has been signed and implementation of the project will start in the near
future.
Another important plan for the current year is constructing
double-track railroad from Ahvaz to Bandar Imam Port. Promotion of train signs
and control systems across domestic railroad network is another important plan
which is currently being considered. The goal is to increase capacity, safety,
and speed of trains. Other plans include implementing ATC along Tehran –
Mashhad route and CTC along Tehran –South and Tehran – Tabriz routes.
It is forecasted that we must rapidly move to remove
bottlenecks at railroad stations through investments that have been considered
thus far; so that, those problems will not trouble us in the future. Of
special importance are important stations that we have in Tehran and Mashhad.
The abovementioned measures aim at increasing share of railroad in total
transportation system of the country. As said before, an important project is
to build double-deck cars, which will be used across our railroad network when
they will be built in the near future by CITIC. The project has been financed
by Chinese companies and banks and this shows that there are good grounds for
foreign banks and companies to get active in our country.
These are our plans for railroad system and I think that
one of the best cooperation grounds with respect to investment and transport
of industrial products is railroad.
We are conducting negotiations in this regard with other
countries and the government has allotted hefty credits to this purpose, which
amount to 8 billion dollar on the whole, including 500 million dollars for
rail and air transport sectors and 4 billion dollars for urban transportation.
Such big credits can establish good grounds for bilateral and international
cooperation. I think nobody will be willing to lose this opportunity."
