BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 15. The Rail Cargo Group is actively working on the development of the Middle Corridor between Asia and Europe, Clemens Först, CEO of the Austrian ÖBB Rail Cargo Group, told Trend.
"We are actively working on developments on the Middle Corridor between Asia and Europe as an alternative to the Northern Corridor on the New Silk Road. The Middle Corridor runs from China, through Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, over the Black Sea to the Romanian port of Constanța, before continuing to Central Europe," Clemens Först said.
He stated that Rail Cargo Group is one of the top providers of rail logistics in Europe, with a broad international network (TransNET) spanning many Eurasian nations and allowing for seamless end-to-end logistics solutions across many borders through the use of so-called TransFER.
"We are a major operator in cross-border transport between Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), with over 1,500 different combinations of TransFER connections in our network. With 20 TransFER connections per week, our strong network between Europe and Türkiye is especially noteworthy and serves as a vital conduit between the CIS countries and Europe," he emphasized.
The company official went on to say that the company's Istanbul branch serves as a hub for Central Asia and offers rail connections between Georgia and Türkiye, which covers all of Central Asia, including Turkmenistan.
To note, the Middle Corridor links the container rail freight networks of China and the European Union countries through Central Asia, the South Caucasus, Türkiye, and Eastern Europe.
A multilateral multimodal transportation infrastructure links ferry terminals on the Caspian and Black Seas with the railway systems of China, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Türkiye, Ukraine, and Poland.
The Middle Corridor facilitates increased cargo traffic from China to Türkiye, as well as to Europe and vice versa.