http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TRAVEL/01/04/bt.morocco.rail.reut/
Turkish firm starts Moroccan rail link
Tuesday, January 4, 2005 Posted: 1622 GMT (0022 HKT)
RABAT, Morocco (Reuters) -- Turkish Ibrahim Polat private group will launch works for a $274-million-worth rail link in Morocco's under-developed north, the country's state railway board ONCF said on Tuesday.
Ibrahim Polat Holding will start this month building nearly a third of the 117-km-long (73 miles) rail section linking the Mediterranean port of Nador to the town of Taourirt, an ONCF spokesman said. He was unable to disclose the value of the contract awarded to Polat.
The Nador-Taourirt project, planned since the 1970s, will be finished before the start of 2008, he added. It will cost 2.25 billion dirhams ($273.6 million) covering infrastructure and equipment costs.
The rail link is part of state efforts aimed at breaking decades of isolation endured by the mountainous Rif area, where the cultivation and trafficking of cannabis, illegal migration and contraband have become the main economic mainstays.
It is also part of ONCF's efforts to develop its relatively small rail network of some 2,000 km in the face of fast-growing freight and passenger traffic.
Turkish firm starts Moroccan rail link
Tuesday, January 4, 2005 Posted: 1622 GMT (0022 HKT)
RABAT, Morocco (Reuters) -- Turkish Ibrahim Polat private group will launch works for a $274-million-worth rail link in Morocco's under-developed north, the country's state railway board ONCF said on Tuesday.
Ibrahim Polat Holding will start this month building nearly a third of the 117-km-long (73 miles) rail section linking the Mediterranean port of Nador to the town of Taourirt, an ONCF spokesman said. He was unable to disclose the value of the contract awarded to Polat.
The Nador-Taourirt project, planned since the 1970s, will be finished before the start of 2008, he added. It will cost 2.25 billion dirhams ($273.6 million) covering infrastructure and equipment costs.
The rail link is part of state efforts aimed at breaking decades of isolation endured by the mountainous Rif area, where the cultivation and trafficking of cannabis, illegal migration and contraband have become the main economic mainstays.
It is also part of ONCF's efforts to develop its relatively small rail network of some 2,000 km in the face of fast-growing freight and passenger traffic.