Date: 13 Mar 2000
Time: 23:12:45
Remote Name: 24.30.137.96
03/13/2000 BBC Worldwide Monitoring Source: Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency, Almaty, in Russian 0656 gmt 13 Mar 00/BBC Worldwide Monitoring/(c) BBC
Text of report by the Kazakh news agency Interfax-Kazakhstan on 13th March
Aktau, 13th March: The Kazakh port town of Aktau (on the Caspian Sea coast, in the west of the republic) is to start paying out a 54m-dollar credit this year which was received from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to reconstruct and modernize the sea harbour.
The port administration reported to Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency that about 9m dollars of the credit was to be paid out this year.
The reconstruction of Aktau port was completed last year.
An official Iranian delegation headed by the country's minister of roads and transport, Mahmud Hojjati, visited the port at the end of last week.
An Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency correspondent reported that the Iranian side took an interest in the construction of the grain terminal at the port, the first section of which is expected to be put into operation this April.
According to Hojjati, direct deliveries of Kazakh grain to Iran by sea will cut both delivery expenditure and time. Previously, Kazakh grain was exported to Iran by rail and road due to which the Iranian side incurred "substantial" expenses because (inter alia) of their transit via third countries, Hojjati stressed.
As was reported earlier, 300,000 tonnes of grain and barley are expected to be exported to Iran this year. This was announced at talks between the Iranian delegation and the Kazakh government in Astana last Thursday [9th March].
According to data received from the port administration, new accords reached with Iran mean a growth in cargo handling by 500,000 t a year on average.
Currently the seaport is able to handle 800,000 t of dry cargo and from 8m to 10m tonnes of oil annually. However, the port is not working at its full capacity at present.