BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 5. The International Road Transport Union (IRU) representative on freight and transit issues, Tatiana Rey-Bellet, shared her opinion on the successes and prospects of the Middle Corridor in her article for the IRU website, Trend reports.
"The Middle Corridor (across the Caspian Sea) and the Southern Corridor (going from the Baltic States through Bulgaria to Türkiye) have become the most important trade routes, influencing the global dynamics of transport and trade. They enable the efficient combination of different modes of transportation and are important given the Suez Canal issue," Rey-Bellet says.
According to her, the growth rate of freight transportation along the Middle Corridor is high and, at times, record-breaking.
"In 2022, the growth in cargo transportation to 2021 along the Middle Corridor was 150 percent. At the same time, container turnover in the Caspian Basin grew 5.5 times in December 2022. Freight traffic grew 86 percent to 2.76 million tons in 2023. This route has good growth opportunities," the IRU representative emphasized.
She spoke in favor of the early introduction of the electronic system "e-TIR" (introduced by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE)) between shippers, carriers, and customs authorities.
"This system will greatly facilitate the use of the advantages of TIR container transportation and will allow the optimization of transport operations. The transition to digital documents is an opportunity to optimize and minimize data exchange for everyone," Rey-Bellet believes.
Generally, she believes that emerging new routes must be quickly supported by harmonized development tools and digitalization to avoid setbacks in global trade.
To note, the idea of the Middle Corridor emerged in 2014, but it is only in the last four years that the development of this route has been progressive.
The IRU was founded 75 years ago in Geneva to promote trade and international road transport in more than 100 countries for sustainable development.
The Union cooperates with UN bodies and other international trade and transport-related organizations.
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