Azerbaijan’s participation in Viking project to enable attracting cargoes from Central Asia, China
By Kamila Aliyeva
Azerbaijan’s participation in the Viking international intermodal freight logistics project is a positive development as it enables to attract cargo flows from Central Asia and China via TRACECA corridor, according to Lithuanian Railways JSC.
We appreciate and positively assess the accession of Azerbaijan railways and its operator Karvan Logistics in the Viking project, the company told Azernews.
“In addition, the Azerbaijan railways launched an initiative on the possible cargo transit to Iran. We hope that it will be a win-win partnership and new routes will be opened,” the company’s message said.
Unfortunately, until today, containers do not run on the route to Azerbaijan, but taking into account the new plans on launching Iran route, it will be a great opportunity for Azerbaijan in terms of new transit flows, according to the message.
“This year the project will celebrate 15- year anniversary. Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine remain the main parts of the project, but the new flows from the other countries are expected,” the company said.
Azerbaijan joined the project in 2016. The project also involves such countries as Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Bulgaria, Moldova, Romania and Turkey.
Lithuanian Railways also noted that there is a plan to connect Viking project with the Trans-Caspian international transport routes (TITR).
In 2017, the volume of cargo transportation along Viking route amounted to 46,451 TEU (Twenty-Foot Equivalent Unit).
The main freight consists of vehicles and its parts, textile products, metal products, products of the chemical industry, the company noted.
Viking is one of the most successful container train projects of the Lithuania Railways company. Its main benefits are consistency (the train currently runs from Klaipėda port five times a week), speed, work experience (the experience enables to provide the high quality services quickly and reliably), competitive prices (special and uniform transit rates in all participating countries), as well as fast EU-CIS border crossing procedures.
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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva
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