PM Garibashvili: travel time from Tbilisi to Batumi will be three hours by 2024

Construction work is underway on the Ubisa-Shorapani section of the Rikoti Pass. Photo: Government of Georgia. 

Agenda.ge, 01 Sep 2021 - 12:45, Tbilisi,Georgia

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili stated that the travel time from Tbilisi to Batumi will be just three hours by 2024 after the construction of 96 bridges and 53 tunnels will be completed on the Rikoti Pass.

Currently the trip takes between five-six hours. 

Garibashvili noted that projects of such scale and complexity have not been implemented in the country. 

This is a truly outstanding project across Europe, costing more than two billion GEL and the project will be fully completed in 2024,” said Garibashvili. 

He called the construction of a 388-kilometer highway connecting the Red Bridge  (a crossing point between Georgia and Azerbaijan on the Tbilisi-Ganja road) and Sarpi (located in the south-west of Georgia on the border with Turkey) the ‘project of the century,’ part of which is the Rikoti Pass. 

This section is important because it is an integral part of the east-west highway which starts from Brest (a city in the southwestern part of Belarus) and ends at the Chinese border,” Garibashvili stated. 

Construction work is underway on the Ubisa-Shorapani section of the Rikoti Pass.