ASTANA, Kazakhstan, November 27. Kazakhstan is gearing up to boost the capacity of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR) and the "North-South" corridor, aiming to hit the ground running with these enhancements, Trend reports.
Kazakhstan's Minister of Transport, Marat Karabaev, reported at a government meeting on the ongoing work to develop the country's transport transit corridors.
He noted that work is actively underway to increase the capacity of these two important transit corridors.
"Due to changes in global logistics routes, the significance of the 'North-South' corridor is growing every day. The corridor's capacity is currently 10 million tons per year. The actual volume of cargo transported this year amounted to 1.8 million tons. Given the potential of the corridor, the plan is to increase its capacity to 20 million tons," said Karabaev.
To achieve this, as the minister highlighted, a roadmap for the synchronized development of the corridor with Iran, Turkmenistan, and Russia was signed in July of this year. In order to attract cargo traffic to this corridor, Kazakhstan has provided special tariff discounts of 50 percent on transit transport.
It was also noted that in the first 10 months of this year, the volume of transportation along the TITR corridor increased by 68 percent, totaling 3.8 million tons.
The Trans-Caspian International Transport Route is an international transport corridor that runs through China, Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and then to Türkiye also European countries. This route is a part of the international "Belt and Road" initiative, which revives the ancient Silk Road in modern terms.
The North-South international transport corridor connects Russia, India, Iran, and neighboring countries (a total of 11 countries). The main advantages of the "North-South" transport corridor over other routes (particularly over the maritime route through the Suez Canal) include a reduction in transportation distance by two or more times, as well as a decrease in container transport costs compared to maritime transport costs.