U.S. official: Azerbaijan does great job in ensuring transit efficiency
By Amina Nazarli
Azerbaijan did a great job in ensuring transit efficiency, said the head of the Economic Section of the U.S. Embassy in Baku.
Azerbaijan, Turkey, Kazakhstan and Georgia did a great job to
improve the speed and harmonize systems for transit, stressed
Carter Wilbur during the Infrastructure, Power and Renewable Energy
Investment Conference in Baku on November 16.
"These countries understand that in this case it is not necessary
to compete. If one country loses, then all countries lose. Today,
no country can compete with maritime transport in terms of price,"
he said.
Given the favorable location of Azerbaijan at the crossroads of north and south, east and west, according to the U.S. official, it becomes a major transit point for transportation of goods from the East and South-East Asia to Europe.
"The new Silk Road provides a unique opportunity to unite east and west, north and south in the areas of trade, as well as supply of various products and services," he added.
Wilbur also said that Azerbaijan needs to expand domestic production, increase employment and to increase the volume of trade.
"We believe that the real driver of domestic production growth
should be the small and medium business. It's important to
understand that additional tax revenue should be provided at the
expense of new companies, but not by expanding the taxation over
existing companies," Wilbur said.
Today around 22 million containers are transported between Asia and
Europe per year. Only 100,000 containers are transported by land,
the rest is transported by sea.
The Trans-Caspian international transport route, which is
designed to provide transport connections between the East and West
of Eurasia, runs through China, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and
then to Europe via Turkey and Ukraine.
The route was launched with the establishment of its Coordinating
Committee in October 2013. The first test container train from
China arrived at the Baku International Sea Trade Port on August 3,
2015. Starting this June new competitive rates of the route came
into force.
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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on
Twitter: @amina_nazarli
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