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India begins transportation to Russia through Azerbaijan

29 November 2016 11:41 (UTC+04:00)
India begins transportation to Russia through Azerbaijan

By Rashid Shirinov

Iran, Azerbaijan, Russia and India have agreed to use the North-South international transport corridor beginning from December for multimodal transportation of cargo from India to Russia.

Shipments from India will be delivered to the southern port of Iran, and then will be delivered to Russia through Azerbaijan by trains and trucks, Vice-President of the Iranian Railways Hossein Ashoori told Trend.

A test container train on the route was sent two months ago. Ashoori said that at present the time of delivery is 22 days, but in the future, the timing of freight can be reduced to 19 days.

Speaking of the North-South corridor, Ashoori noted that Iran plans to build two lines of the railway in the country – Qazvin-Rasht (165 kilometers) and Rasht-Astara (164 kilometers). In its turn, Azerbaijan will extend the railway to Iran through the border city of Astara. Ashoori said the construction of this section is at the final stage and it will be completed in the near future.

“The construction of the Gazvin-Rasht railway is scheduled for completion within seven months,” he said, adding that the construction of another section of the railway Rasht-Astara will take roughly five years to complete.

Ashoori stressed that Iran is ready to transport goods by any available transport routes until these sections of the railway are constructed.

The International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) will connect Northern Europe with Southeastern Asia, as well as link railways of Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia. The corridor is planned to transport 6 million tons of cargo per year at the initial stage and 15-20 million tons of cargo in the future.

The corridor is expected to bring huge benefits to the Azerbaijani budget. The route enjoys several advantages compared to other transport corridors, as it is considered to be more profitable for each parameter than other alternative routes, including reduction of the distance and delivery time two or threefold.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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