At Friday’s Cabinet session, the Armenian government decided to allocate money for the preparation of planning and initial calculation documents for the construction of a customs office in Margara settlement—on the Armenian-Turkish border—of Metsamor community of Armavir Province.

In the explanation of the respective decision, it is noted that in order to carry out the customs control process in the aforementioned area, it is planned to build a new customs checkpoint, for which it is necessary to draw up plan and estimate documents for the construction work.

There are very limited deadlines for the construction of this customs office and the preparation of its plan and estimate documents, and that is why it is necessary to carry out the construction and planning in parallel, in a phased version.

 The amount required for drafting the aforesaid documents is 28,291,000 drams.

The cost of construction work, as well as the necessary equipment and property—including technical and copyright controls, project expertise—according to enlarged calculations, is 732,805,000 drams, for which it will be necessary to allocate additional funds from the 2023 state budget of Armenia because this is not possible to implement on the account of the funds the State Revenue Committee.

Based on the abovementioned, it is planned to acquire the work and services being carried out by the project through an urgent and one-person procurement process.

Beyond the Margara Bridge is the Armenian-Turkish border, which has been closed since 1993. The closed borders for 30 years, however, were briefly opened once or twice this February when Armenia sent humanitarian aid to the victims of the powerful earthquakes in Turkey.