BAKU, Azerbaijan, Dec. 23
By Fidan Babayeva - Trend:
The volume of freight traffic through the Astara terminal on the Azerbaijan-Iran border, which the Azerbaijani side has leased for 25 years, will increase by 15-16 percent to 420,000 tons in 2021, the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies of Azerbaijan told Trend.
According to the ministry, in March 2018, the launch of the first phase of the project to connect the Astara (Iran) - Astara (Azerbaijan) railway and the laying of the foundation of the grain terminal took place. On March 6, 2019, the Qazvin-Rasht section of the Qazvin-Rasht-Astara (Iran) - Astara (Azerbaijan) railway was opened, designed to become an integral part of the North-South international transport corridor.
The construction of a terminal complex in Iranian Astara is planned to be completed in the near future, the ministry said.
After the completion of the planned projects and a further increase in the volume of cargo transportation along the North-South transport corridor, it is not excluded that some states, including the countries of Central and Southeast Asia, will join it, the ministry concluded.
The foundation of the North-South transport corridor was laid on September 12, 2000, in accordance with an intergovernmental agreement signed between Russia, Iran, and India. Azerbaijan joined this agreement in 2005. In general, this agreement was ratified by 13 countries (Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Armenia, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Oman, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Ukraine).
The purpose of the corridor is to shorten the delivery time for goods from India to Russia, as well as to Northern and Western Europe (delivery time on the current route is more than 6 weeks, through the North-South this figure is expected to be 3 weeks).
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