By IANS
Havana : Cuba has purchased 550 cargo wagons and 200 railway passenger cars from Iran, the country’s transport minister has said, Spain’s EFE news agency reported Wednesday.
The purchase will help Cuba re-establish daily train services between Havana and the island’s other provinces, Cuba’s Transport Minister Jorge Luis Sierra was quoted as saying.
Sierra did not mention the cost of the transaction.
In November last year, Iran had sanctioned a $295 million loan to Cuba to finance imports from Tehran, while the Cuban government has signed contracts worth more than $2 billion in the transport sector.
The investment programme began two years ago with the purchase of vehicles to ease the country’s transport system, one of the main problems facing the communist-ruled country.
The plan to revive the Cuban rail transport system also involves the acquisition of 100 Chinese locomotives. Among the priority areas are the modernisation of railroad tie plants, railroad track welding and the reactivation of a quarry to supply gravel for railway tracks.
The main railway junctions and railway lines, which are currently out of service, would be repaired and the railway bridges that are in poor conditions would be removed.