BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 25. Targeted measures can activate the great potential of the Middle Corridor, the official at International Transport Forum at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) told Trend.
The official said that in its current state, the Middle Corridor cannot accommodate all cargo from the Northern Corridor.
“The Middle Corridor has the capacity for 3-5% of the goods transported between China and Europe via the Northern Corridor. Shifting all the freight transported via the Northern Corridor would represent an increase in volume of around 2 000% for the Middle Corridor,” the official noted.
In their words, the main bottlenecks of the Middle Corridor are the maritime links: from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan across the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan, and from Georgia and Türkiye across the Black Sea to Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine.
“Many ports face interoperability issues and heavy congestion, especially Constanza in Romania. The alternative land-based Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) line is also congested. In the Caspian Sea, only two ships carry goods for the China-Europe route. Neither vessels nor port equipment can handle containers, since the route was primarily used for transshipments of bulk commodities prior to 2022,” the official said.
They added that several other factors hamper freight flows via the Middle Corridor.
“Among them are inefficient border crossings and customs procedures, low frequency and lack of flexibility of train services, and a lack of a well-established logistics market,” they said.
However, potentially, the Middle Corridor could be the fastest Eurasian route, with journey times of between 10 and 15 days possible in theory, compared to more than 30 days today.
In their words, targeted measures can activate the great potential of the Middle Corridor and implemented by 2025, they could make Eurasian freight flows 30-40% faster and 35-45% cheaper than the Northern Corridor.
Six packages targeting different corridor parts were tested for their impact, using the ITF Freight Model:
• Improve the China-Kazakhstan rail link (Beijing-Aktau)
• Optimise border crossings in the Caspian Sea and for China-Kazakhstan
• Develop ports and increase the number of vessels in the Caspian Sea
• Enhance the capacity of ports and rail connections in the Black Sea
• Improve the Türkiye rail link (Kars-Istanbul)
• Modernise border crossings and interoperability for Türkiye-Bulgaria and Türkiye-Georgia