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Ashgabat, Beijing eye North-South corridor’s potential

3 May 2016 17:32 (UTC+04:00)
Ashgabat, Beijing eye North-South corridor’s potential

A seminar titled "Turkmenistan-China: interrelation and interaction within the revival of the Silk Road" was held in the Chinese city of Lianyungang, the Turkmen Foreign Ministry reported on May 3.

The seminar was organized by the Turkmen embassy with the support of the local administration.

Participants of the seminar highlighted the key issues of transport and logistics development and made a number of proposals and recommendations aimed at the implementation of transit and export-import potential of the railway corridor China-Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran.

A trilateral meeting of the Turkmen railway transport minister and the heads of JSC "NC" Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (Kazakhstan Railways) and Iranian Railways was held in Ashgabat in March 2016. Container traffic from China to Iran through the territories of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan was one of the issues on the agenda.

Turkmenistan, which has a favorable geographical location, has recently strengthened its position of an important transit and transportation hub for regional and continental importance. The commissioning of the new railway Uzen-Gyzylgaya-Bereket-Etrek-Gorgan (Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran) in December 2014 can be noted as the last one of these steps.

The North-South corridor aims to provide transit opportunities to Nordic countries and Russia with the countries of the Persian Gulf basin, the Indian Ocean and Southeastern Asia through Iran. As an alternative to the sea route through the Suez Canal, the International North-South transport corridor (INSTC) claims primarily to container traffic.

This project was implemented on the basis of an agreement signed by Turkmenistan, Iran and Kazakhstan in 2007. Initially, up to 3-5 million tons of cargo per year will be transported via the corridor, and the volume will increase up to 10-12 million tons in the future, according to preliminary estimates.

The project was implemented with financial assistance of the Asian Development Bank and the Islamic Development Bank.

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