Azernews.Az

By Nigar Orujova

Azerbaijan that enjoys favorable location between East and West, will join a consortium on transportation of goods from China to Europe.

The largest transport and logistics operators of Azerbaijan, Turkey, Kazakhstan and Georgia have agreed on the establishment of an organization to transport goods from China to Europe, the Georgian Railway reported.

The consortium will accelerate and coordinate the goods transportation from China to Europe, Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia’s National Secretary in Azerbaijan Akif Mustafayev told Trend.

“Everything that is done in order to attract freight flows through our TRACECA corridor is supported and approved by Azerbaijan. In this regard, it was decided to join the consortium,” he stressed.

In the first few years the member countries of Trans-Caspian Transport Route will be able to earn about one billion dollars on cargo transportation, he noted. In the future profits of Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey from the traffic on this route will increase.

The agreement to create a consortium was reached in Istanbul, Turkey, during a presentation of opportunities and prospects of the Trans-Caspian transport route “China-Turkey-Europe”.

“The founders of the consortium will become Chinese Minsheng Logistics, Kazakh KTZ Express, the Azerbaijani Caspian Sea Shipping Company and the Azerbaijani company Karvan Logistics, as well as Georgian Trans Caucasus Terminals. The Turkish side will be represented in the consortium as an associated member,” the report said.

The Trans-Caspian international transport route runs through China, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, to reach Europe. A first test container train from China has arrived by this route in the Baku International Sea Trade Port in August.

The second container train via the Trans-Caspian international transport route arrived in Georgia by transiting through the Azerbaijani territory in October.

The Trans-Caspian international transport route enjoys the opportunity to become attractive and profitable for consignors from European countries. It is expected that approximately 300,000-400,000 containers will be transported via the Trans-Caspian international transport route by 2020, bringing hundreds of millions of manats in profit to Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan ready to transit Turkish goods to Central Asia

Azerbaijan, that wants to turn into the transport hub of the region, is ready to use its location to provide transit of the Turkish goods to the countries of Central Asia, Mustafayev said.

Russia banned entrance of trucks from Turkey, and on the background of escalation of conflict between the two countries, Turkey is looking for the alternative route.

Mustafayev said that in this situation, the Turkish side suggested directing the cargo through Azerbaijan, and this initiative is entirely supported by the country.

“Conditions will be created at the border posts for the free entry of Turkish trucks in Azerbaijan,” he noted.

He added that the strategic decisions of the Azerbaijani leadership in order to attract cargo flows were taken before the start of the Russian-Turkish conflict.

“The decisions such as providing broad powers to the Azerbaijan Railways for cargo transportation, particularly in view of the fact that the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway will be put into operation at the end of 2016, establishing of a coordinating council, which will deal with the problematic issues, including tariff, were made long before the deterioration of relations between Russia and Turkey,” he stressed.

“The situation has developed in such a way that traffic flows are now sent via Azerbaijan. They do not pass Russia, the relations between Turkey and Iran is not quite warm too, and the only and the shortest route in such situation is the Turkey-Georgia-Azerbaijan-Caspian Sea-Central Asia corridor.

“I am sure that decisions will soon be adopted to simplify tariffs and terms of cargo transportation across the border. We need to create such conditions so that later, when relations between Russia and Turkey improves, shipping to Asia would still go through Azerbaijan,” said Mustafayev.

Azerbaijan is ready for such an increase in cargo traffic, he noted.

“About 30,000 trucks out of 200,000 Turkish trucks that were engaged in transportation of food products, agricultural products and other goods passed through Azerbaijan. The remaining 170,000 passed through the Georgian-Russian border in Russia and Central Asia. If they are redirected, Azerbaijan has the possibility to pass such number of goods through its territory. In addition, there are enough ferries in the Caspian Sea to cope with such volumes,” he said.

Mustafayev said that the growth of traffic will significantly contribute to an increase in revenues of Azerbaijan.

“Today, revenues from transport corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia account for about $350 million a year. Now, because of the sharp increase in traffic the revenues may increase by 4-5 times. It is difficult to give exact figures, because we do not know how loads will be distributed,” he said.

__

Nigar Orujova is AzerNews’s staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @o_nigar

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz