The World Bank has disbursed a $15 million loan that will be spent on rebuilding and repairing 61 kilometers of more roads across Armenia.
The bank announced on Thursday that the Armenian government will contribute $3.8 million to the “additional financing” approved by it as part of the Lifeline Road Improvement Project (LRIP) launched in 2009. It said 433 kilometers of Armenian roads have already been upgraded thanks to the LRIP.
“Despite visible improvement in the last decade, about 40 percent of the roads in Armenia remain in poor condition, and one-third of the rural population lacks access to an all-weather road,” read a statement released by the World Bank.
“The rehabilitation of additional lifeline roads will facilitate better access to jobs, markets, and other basic social services for over 60,000 people in the provinces,” it quoted Sylvie Bossoutrot, the bank’s country manager for Armenia, as saying.
This will allow local farmers and small business owners to “bring their products to market more easily and at a lower cost,” said Bossoutrot.
The disbursement raised to almost $2.4 billion the total amount of mainly low-interest loans provided by the World Bank to Armenia since 1992. It will solidify the bank’s status as the South Caucasus state’s leading foreign creditor.
The Armenian government is also planning to finance other road projects from the state budget. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Wednesday that most of 62 billion drams ($129 million) in additional taxes which the government intends to collect this year will be spent on road construction.
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