Azernews.Az

By Aynur Karimova

Kazakhstan and Iran, the two Caspian littoral states, are keen to increase the volume of cargo traffic to 2.5 million tons in 2016.

This was stated at a meeting held between Askar Mamin, the Head of Kazakhstan Railways JSC, and Mohsen Poursaeed-Aqaei, the Managing Director of Iran Railways, Kazakhstan Railways reported on February 23.

During the meeting held in Tehran, the sides discussed the issues of organization of container trains from China to Iran via Kazakhstan on a regular basis.

Kazakhstan and Iran also discussed the intensification of works towards involving Russian exports to Iran through the Uzen-Bereket-Gorgan railway (Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran) line.

The Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran railway was commissioned by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, his Turkmen counterpart Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in December 2014.

Preliminary estimates show that annually 3-5 million metric tons of cargo will be transported via this route, which is a part of the North-South international transport corridor. In the long term, the transportation will increase to 10-12 million metric tons.

The new railway line opens the optimal transport route between countries of Europe and the Persian Gulf, contributes to the creation of related infrastructure, logistics centers, new points of growth, thousands of new jobs.

In February 2016, the first test container train launched on the China-Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran railway route proceeded from Turkmenistan to Iran.

The total length of China-Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran route is about 10,000 kilometers, and the journey time is about two weeks.

The creation of such transport and transit corridor became possible after the construction of the Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran international railway route.

Kazakh and Iran railway agencies also mulled the prospects for cooperation in the field of railway engineering and export of Kazakhstan-made 150 locomotives of "Evolution" series, 70 passenger locomotives, 5,000 freight cars, rails and switches to Iran.

The Kazakh delegation also held a meeting with Iranian Social Security Investment Company and the parties discussed joint construction of a terminal in the Iranian Bandar-Abbas sea port and infrastructure on the basis of a dry port near the Incheburun station, located on the border of Turkmenistan and Iran.

Kazakhstan Railways also held talks with Raja Rail Transportation Co. to supply 200 passenger cars of a new type, produced by Kazakhstan's Tulpar-Talgo plant, to Iran.

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Aynur Karimova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Aynur_Karimova

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