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Tariffs to be approved for transportation along BTK railway for 2018 [UPDATE]

15 November 2017 12:07 (UTC+04:00)
Tariffs to be approved for transportation along BTK railway for 2018 [UPDATE]

By Aygul Salmanova

Baku hosts a general meeting of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR) Association's Legal Entities Union within the framework of which the participants discussed increase of freight traffic along the route and the ways of its use with greater efficiency.

The agenda of the meeting includes plans for transportations, tariffs and budget and admission of new members to the association.

The meeting was addressed by the President of Kazakhstan Railways and Chairman of the TCITR Association Kanat Alpysbayev, who said that the launch of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway is a significant event.

“Now we need to intensify work on loading the route, attracting cargo, increasing the corridor’s capacity, and improving the infrastructure,” the head of Kazakhstan Railways said. “Today, regional cooperation requires the creation of competitive logistics services, a sufficient number of rolling stock.”

Alpysbayev noted that according to the results of the current year, these volumes are expected to total at least 1.3 million tons of cargo.

“The volumes of transportation via the TCITR were set at 725,000 tons for 2017, however, according to the results of 10 months, we have already exceeded the plan by 80 percent and transported more than one million tons of cargo,” said the head of Kazakhstan Railways.

“We expect that the volumes will total at least 1.3 million tons of cargo by the end of the year, and this figure is planned to be at least three million tons in 2018,” added Alpysbayev.

He noted that the continuation of the positive dynamics depends on the concerted efforts to create favorable conditions for carriers.

“We continue to work on establishing competitive rates on the corridor,” said Alpysbayev.

Additionally, the government of Kazakhstan intends to export grain to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey via the International Trans-Caspian Transport Route.

“In 2018, we plan to carry not only traditional fuel oil and gas oil via the route, but also to intensify the transportation of grain from Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. The Kazakh government supports us in this direction. Transportation of chemical products, non-ferrous metals, ore and coal from Kazakhstan to foreign markets will also increase,' noted Alpysbayev. “In addition, we want to intensify the transportation of Kazakh coal through this route, as well as to develop container transportation. In particular, we plan to transport 15,000 containers for the next year.”

Meanwhile, there are plans to transport 520,000 tons of oil products, 350,000 tons of grain, 364,000 tons of non-ferrous metals and 360,000 tons of coal from Kazakhstan via the TCITR in 2018, noted Alpysbayev.

He said that the working group determined the directions on which it is necessary to work in order to increase the traffic.

Another issue included in the agenda of the meeting is the opening of the representative office of The Trans-Caspian International Transport Route’s Association, noted Alpysbayev. “This issue, just like the approval of the budget of the office, will be resolved today,” he said.

In October 2016, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Georgia signed an agreement on the establishment of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route’s Association with its office in Astana. Its activities are aimed at attracting transit and foreign trade cargo, as well as developing integrated logistics products via the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route.

The route runs through China, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and then through Turkey and Ukraine to Europe. New competitive tariffs were introduced for the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route since June 1, 2016.

The railway’s peak capacity will be 17 million tons of cargo per year. At an initial stage, this figure will be one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo.

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