BAKU, Azerbaijan, Apr. 23
By Sadraddin Aghjayev – Trend:
Each of the Baku International Sea Trade Port terminals can be managed by companies engaged in certain activities in a specific industry, in 5 years, Director General of Taleh Ziyadov said in an interview with foreign media, Trend reports on Apr.23.
According to Ziyadov, it’s expected that the companies be interested in the development of the terminals.
He noted that the port of Baku is fully owned by the state, and all terminals are under the jurisdiction of the state-owned Baku International Sea Trade Port CJSC company.
Besides, according to him, most (87 percent) of the cargo traffic in the port falls on transit, and the cargo is mainly shipped in the ‘west-east’ direction.
"As regards heavy vehicles (TIR), about 65 percent of them fall on the port of Turkmenbashi (Turkmenistan), the remaining 35 percent on the Kazakh ports of Kuryk and Aktau. However, this doesn’t mean that they are shipped only to these countries. For example, trucks going to Uzbekistan very often use the ferry service in the Kazakhstan direction," he noted, adding that most of the containers transshipped at the Baku port go to Central Asia.
"As for China, this country accounts for about 15 percent of container turnover, that is, about 6,000 TEU-containers (TEU - one twenty-foot sea container). Currently, most of the containers going from China to Europe pass through Kazakhstan and Russia, but we expect that China's share in our port will grow in the coming years,” the CEO further said. “This will be facilitated by the growing activity of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TMTM), as well as the opening by Turkey of a tunnel under the Bosphorus for the movement of freight trains.”
He noted that historically, gondola cars and tank cars were mainly used for the transport of goods in the USSR.
“In those times, containers weren’t an important means of delivering goods. The development of container traffic in our port has begun rather recently, and every year we see the growth in popularity of container traffic. Hopefully, in the future, this tendency will develop even more intensively. Moreover, in the future, it’s planned to change the approach to the management of ports," added Ziyadov.
---
Follow the author on Twitter: @agdzhaev
