AMMAN (AFP) — Jordan plans to begin work on a six-billion-dollar railway next year to bolster trade with its neighbours and create jobs for its cash-strapped population, Transport Minister Sahl Majali told AFP in an interview.
"The 4.5-billion-dinar project is vital to Jordan because it will make freight movement faster and easier, cut transportation costs and boost trade," Majali said on Tuesday.
"It will also create massive job opportunities for Jordanians."
The railway would link the Red Sea port of Aqaba with the Syrian border, through Amman and then the industrial city of Zarqa -- the two largest cities in the largely desert country.
Extending some 1,600 kilometres (about 990 miles), the railway would also link the Saudi and Iraqi borders with Jordan's northern city of Irbid and the northeastern towns of Mafraq and Azraq.
Work will begin next year and is scheduled to be completed by 2013, Majali said. The focus will initially be on freight services, with passenger trains planned for the future.
"We have already floated several tenders for the project," he said, with Jordan open to bids from all local, regional or international companies.
"There are some logistics and security problems on the Jordanian-Iraqi border. They need to be solved first," he said, without elaborating.
The cargo trains will be designed to reach a top speed of 100 kilometres (60 miles) per hour and the passenger trains 160 kilometres per hour, according to the transport ministry.
"Now we are studying several financial options to fund the project. The government might need some sort of assistance from the private sector to build the infrastructure and might take a loan," Majali said.
"We are determined to go ahead with the project."
The government has allocated around 140 million dollars for land acquisition.
"Most of the land is in the desert and not inside the cities," said Majali, an engineer who was public works minister in the previous cabinet and was appointed to transport in a February government reshuffle.
Jordan and several other Arab countries approved a railway link agreement during meetings of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia in 2003.
"Jordan is coordinating with neighbouring countries, and each one of them needs to do its part," Majali said.
"We are planning to establish land ports and logistics centres in Jordan, and not just railways," he said, adding that the nerve centre of the ambitious plan will be set up in Amman.
"This will have positive social and economic effects on the country."
Finance Minister Bassem Salem said earlier this month that the government expects its budget deficit to rise to 1.5 billion dollars this year, 50 percent higher than initial forecasts.
Jordan's government on Tuesday approved a plan to attract more investment and boost economic growth, which has slowed to around 5.5 percent, while foreign debt is running at at 6.6 billion dollars.
Unemployment is officially 14.3 percent, with 70 percent of the jobless under the age of 30, according to official figures, but independent estimates put the jobless rate at 25 percent.
There are currently two operating railways in the kingdom, which covers an area of 92,300 square kilometres (35,600 square miles).
A 175-kilometre line carries passengers twice a week between Amman and Damascus. It is part of the part of the 1,300-kilometre Hejaz Railway, which was built by the Ottomans in the 1900s to ferry pilgrims to the Muslim holy cities of Medina and Mecca.
This railway will not be integrated into the project.
"It's a very old network and it's unfeasible to include in the plan, not to mention technical problems," Majali said.
But another 293-kilometre railway, which transports between 2.5 million and 3.0 million tonnes of phosphate from mines in the south to Aqaba each year, might be included.
Jordan is the second largest exporter of phosphate rock in the world and the sixth largest producer.
Majali said the government also plans to build a light rail linking Amman and Zarqa, 27 kilometres to the north. The 250 million dollar project aims to carry 100,000 people a day between the two cities, which are together home to half of Jordan's population.
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