BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 22. We have been doing everything possible to attract the attention of our partners both in the East and West to the importance of the Middle Corridor, said Azerbaijan’s Minister of Digital Development and Transport Rashad Nabiyev at the 5th Tbilisi Silk Road Forum, Trend reports.
The minister noted that for years, some partners viewed the route merely as a complement to the Northern Corridor rather than as a key transit pathway in its own right. "They just neglected the fact that the Middle Corridor can be much more important than the Northern Route," he added.
Nabiyev highlighted that interest from Western countries began to grow significantly in 2022, by which time Azerbaijan had already modernized much of its transport infrastructure. "We actually renovated, I would say, the full infrastructure when it comes to the railways. We have built thousands of kilometers of railways, and up to date nine international airports - three of them in the liberated territories," he said.
He also pointed to Azerbaijan’s regional investments, including nearly $1 billion in the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, as a demonstration of Baku’s commitment to regional connectivity. "We have gone beyond our own perimeter and invested into the infrastructure of our friendly and neighboring country, Georgia," Nabiyev said.
In addition to physical infrastructure, Nabiyev underscored the importance of "soft connectivity". "It’s not only about the infrastructure,” he stressed. “It’s also about aligning all our bureaucratic flow - customs, state border control arrangements, and so on".