Iran, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan to expand trade turnover
By Vusala Abbasova
Iran, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan intend to expand their mutual trade turnover and to reduce the transport tariffs.
The possibilities of realizing these issues were discussed during a recent trilateral meeting with participation of representatives of railway authorities of Iran, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, according to the Review.uz website.
During the meeting, Deputy Managing Director of Iranian Railways Hossein Ashouri mentioned the existence of the most favorable conditions to expand the cooperation between the countries.
"At the moment, the sides have to decide how to increase the trade turnover and the volume of transit railway supplies," he said.
Ashouri also said that the three countries are also interested in reducing the transport tariffs in order to increase the competitiveness of the Iran-Turkmenistan-Kazakhstan railway and attract the additional transit and export cargos.
The Iran-Turkmenistan-Kazakhstan railway as one of the important economic projects of the Economic Cooperation Organization was inaugurated in 2014, providing opportunity to connect the east of Caspian Sea to both the west of the sea and the Persian Gulf.
The large-scale North-South railway project has been implemented since 2007 after the signing of a high-level trilateral agreement between Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Iran.
The length of this railway is about 908 km, 120 km of which is in Kazakhstan, 700 in Turkmenistan and 88 km in Iran.
According to experts, the regional project is aimed at providing European and Asian countries with access to Central Asia and the Persian Gulf. A similar opportunity will appear for the transit of goods from the countries of South and Southeast Asia, and the coast of the Indian Ocean to the countries of Northern and Eastern Europe through Iran, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Russia.
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