Azernews.Az

By Rashid Shirinov

Railway administrations of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Georgia signed a memorandum of Trans-Caspian International Transport Route Association and adopted its charter, Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (Kazakhstan Railways) reported on October 10.

The memorandum was undersigned at a meeting of the Coordinating Committee for the development of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), attended by the heads of the railway administrations of the three countries.

The Association will aim at attracting transit and foreign trade cargo to the route, as well as at the development of TITR’s integrated logistics products. The association’s office will be located in Astana.

The association is expected to develop an effective tariff policy, optimize costs and value of integrated services, create a single technology of transportation process, facilitate to the reduction of administrative barriers linked with border and customs procedures and processing of cargo and containers in the ports.

The meeting participants also discussed the establishment of competitive rates for TITR. The parties have agreed on preferential tariff rates on the territories of the TITR participating countries for a number of export-oriented Kazakh goods, including grain, petroleum products and nonferrous metals.

The Trans-Caspian international transport route runs through China, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and then through Turkey and Ukraine to Europe.

The agreement to create the Trans-Caspian International Transportation Consortium was signed in April in Baku by the railway authorities of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kazakhstan.

The project enjoys an opportunity to become one of the most attractive and profitable for consignors from European countries, while approximately 300,000-400,000 containers are expected to be transported via TITR by 2020, bringing huge financial profits to Azerbaijan.

New competitive tariffs have been introduced for TITR since June 1, 2016, putting the route among the cheapest and most profitable corridors for freight traffic.

The first test container train from China arrived at the Baku International Sea Trade Port on August 3, 2015.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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