MNA � Managing Director of the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways (RAI) Saeed Rasouli announced on Sunday that by March 2021, construction of some 800 kilometers of railway will be completed.

�Completion of these 800 kilometers of railway requires 40.5 trillion rilas (about $252 million) of finance,� Rasouli said.

Boosting efficiency of railway fleet and network through benefiting from the most available capacities and supporting domestic production in developing passenger and cargo fleet are the two major priorities of RAI in the current Iranian year (ending on March 20, 2020).

�To materialize this target, connecting the cargo hubs to the national network via building 512 kilometers of railway is being followed up�, Rasouli announced on July 14.

He said the 512 kilometers of railway have the capacity of transporting 20 million tons of cargoes per year, and put the total cargo transported via railway during the past Iranian calendar year at 46 million tons.

He added that linking the cargo centers to the railway network has been started and implanting the scheduled plan for the current year is on the agenda, while major cargo centers are planned to be linked to the railway based on a multi-year schedule.

Rasouli announced that his organization and the ministry of industry have come to an agreement on supporting domestic production in the railway sector.