YEREVAN (ARKA)–Armenian Transport and Communications Minister Gurgen Sarkisian said today that construction of the first phase of North-South Road Corridor will be launched in April 2010.

The project will be funded by the initial loan of $60 million, earmarked by the Asia Development Bank to reconstruct an 18 kilometer section of the road corridor between the capital city Yerevan, and Ashtarak to the north, and improve safety of Yerevan to Ararat road to the south.

Earlier this year the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said it will extend up to $500 million to Armenia to upgrade its main corridor road as part of a broader thrust to improve connectivity, and boost trade, growth and livelihood opportunities in the Caucasus and Central Asia subregions. Funds will be released periodically through a multitranche financing facility.

The transport corridor will stretch from the southern Armenian town of Meghri, on the border with Iran, to Bavra in the north on the border with Georgia.

The project, which the minister said is estimated to cost $962 million, will be complete in 2016. In the second phase, which is expected to be over in 2010, a road from Ashtarak to Gyumri will be reconstructed. In the third phase a new road from Goris to Kapan will be constructed.

“This is a very important project for Armenia, because it is a regional project that will connect the southern parts of Armenia with Georgian seaports on the Black Sea and will cut the travel by 30 percent,” the minister said. The project implementation concept was developed by German-Austrian ILF and the feasibility study was made by the Japanese firm PADECO.