BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 11. Azerbaijani state transport companies shared statistics on passenger transportation for April this week, Trend reports.
Across all routes, Azerbaijan Railways (ADY) CJSC reported a 21 percent increase in domestic passenger transportation in April 2024 compared to April 2023.
Heydar Aliyev International Airport announced in April of this year that it would serve nearly 570,000 passengers, a 50 percent increase compared to April 2023.
This week, the Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping Company CJSC announced the repair of one of its largest tankers, the "Jabbar Hashimov."
Additionally, ADY announced this week that on May 20, 2024, the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway route, a crucial component of the Middle Corridor, will be commissioned with new capacity, able to transport up to five million tons of cargo annually, which is five times more than the previous capacity.
The Middle Corridor (or Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, or TITR) remains in the spotlight of experts from various countries as one of the most promising international transport routes.
Senior Fellow of the Chinese Taihe Institute, Ding Jianwei said that "in the foreseeable future, the TITR will enter a new cycle of accelerated development and become a new major trade route in Eurasia and an important part of the global supply chain".
He expressed the opinion that more and more countries will participate in this transport route, and the volume of freight transportation will significantly increase.
The importance of the Middle Corridor is also recognized in the US. It has been revealed that the Caspian Policy Center (CPC), one of the leading analytical structures in the country, will organize the eighth annual Trans-Caspian Forum in Washington on May 21 titled "How to Maximize the Use of the Middle Corridor".
Representatives from Azerbaijan and other participating countries of the TITR, officials from the US Department of State, the US Department of Commerce, and USAID, as well as representatives of companies and expert groups interested in the development of the Middle Corridor, have been invited to this forum.
The EU has actively engaged in the development of the TITR. This week, the EU Ambassador to Kazakhstan Kestutis Jankauskas noted in an interview with Trend that the Middle Corridor is a viable alternative for transit freight transportation between China and Europe, and there is great potential to triple freight transportation along this route.
On the sidelines of the Azerbaijan-Slovak business forum held in Baku on May 7, member of the executive board of the Central European group of companies AZC Orbis Invest and majority shareholder representative of the Slovak company Betamont, Matej Sabol said that "the development of railroad infrastructure in the Caucasus and Central Asian countries has huge potential, especially in the context of the activities of the Middle Corridor".
He noted that this Slovak company in Central Asia shows interest in participating in the project for the construction of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway (part of the Middle Corridor) and, overall, aims to expand its presence in such a promising region as Central Asia.
Türkiye and Kazakhstan are also parts of the Middle Corridor, and this week Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed the law "On the Ratification of the Agreement between the Governments of Kazakhstan and Türkiye on International Combined Transportation of Goods".
This document envisages regular railway-ferry operations in the Caspian Sea, the provision of corresponding communication and transit services on railway lines connecting the states, particularly for international container block trains, and also defines the conditions for the transportation of goods between the two countries, taking into account customs clearance rules.
On May 10, a delegation from Kazakhstan participated in the first meeting of the trilateral working group (in a hybrid format) on optimizing connectivity in the Caspian Sea at the headquarters of the Permanent Secretariat of the Intergovernmental Commission of the international TRACECA project in Baku.
Representatives from Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan also attended the meeting. As the TRACECA Secretariat explained, the goal of this working group was to develop and implement measures aimed at reducing the time vessels spend in ports and at ferry terminals - one of the current challenges facing the TRACECA corridor.
Additionally, this week, The Print Indian online newspaper assessed the prospects of the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), which currently involves Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, and India actively. It's worth noting that the Indian city of Mumbai serves as the endpoint of the INSTC's eastern branch, and Russia is currently testing the delivery of food products via this multimodal line. The western branch of the INSTC passes through Azerbaijan to Iran.
