Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Azerbaijan intends to create a state registry for seaports.

This was noted in a draft law on seaports, which was recommended for discussion at the parliament's plenary session by the parliament's Economic Policy Committee on January 31.

The registry will include data on the ports and their technical characteristics, capabilities, and services for freight and passenger vessels.

Ports will be removed from the registry when they are shutdown.

The law will regulate relations in merchant shipping at sea ports, as well as the ports' construction, opening and closing, and the work.

The law will reflect a basis for the state regulation of the seaports' operation.

It will also cover the activities of shipping agents, marine terminal operators, carriers, and port infrastructure owners, and issues regarding the financing of ports' operations and the terms of renting state-owned properties and so on.

The law will also regulate relations in the framework of merchant shipping at sea ports and their construction, opening and closing, work, and rules. The basis of state regulation for seaport activity will be reflected in the law.

The law will cover the activities of shipping agents at ports, marine terminal operators, carriers, owners of port infrastructure, financing port operations, and the terms of rental properties owned by the state in the port area.

Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, is the largest port in the Caspian Sea. It is possible to sail from Baku to Russia, Central Asia, and the Anzali port in Iran.

The transportation of cargo from the Baku Port with a shipment capacity of 5-10 million tons of loads per year takes a long time due to the location of the port in the center of Baku and the heavy traffic in the capital city.

A new port at the Alat settlement in Baku's Garadagh district is currently under construction.

Work on the construction of the new seaport is being carried out by the Complex Construction Directorate under the Transport Ministry.

Under the project, the Dutch contracting company Van Oord will finish the work in the maritime part of the new port, and the local company Azerkorpu will conduct preparations for the main operations on its ground part.

Construction work, which started in November 2010, is carried out in three stages. The first phase of the project involves the construction of two ferries and three cargo berths for receiving containers and conventional bulk carriers. The second phase of the project envisions the construction of three additional cargo berths, and the third one concerns the construction of two more cargo berths.

In the first stage, the port will be capable of handling up to 10 million tons of cargo. In the second stage, its capacity will reach 17 million tons of cargo, and in the last stage, the port will handle 25 million tons of cargo.

In addition to a logistics center, a free economic zone will be created in the territory of the port in the future. Construction work will cost the Azerbaijani government more than $1.1 billion.