Baku, Azerbaijan, April 15
By Maksim Tsurkov - Trend:
The idea of establishing the International Trans-Caspian Transportation Consortium by Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Georgia is to solve a number of important issues creating difficulties for the cargo transportation via the Trans-Caspian route, says Akif Mustafayev, TRACECA national secretary in Azerbaijan.
Mustafayev told Trend April 15 that the establishment of such a consortium clearly determines the cooperation among the member-states of the transport corridor project.
"I would like the establishment of this consortium to give concrete results and not to resemble other consortiums as part of other projects," he said. "For example, a consortium on the North-South project was established among Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia 10 years ago to accelerate the railway construction."
"However, this consortium did not work at all," he said. "As a result, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev expressed political will. The process moved forward thanks to the president's decisions."
"Another consortium on the East-West corridor was set up in Istanbul with the participation of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kazakhstan in the third quarter of 2015," he said. "However, the results of its activity have not been seen yet."
Mustafayev said that the idea of establishing the Trans-Caspian consortium is to solve the problematic issues for the development of cargo transportation via the corridor.
"The consortium was established to address the issues concerning tariffs, existing bureaucratic delays, eliminate deficiencies in infrastructure, increase the container train speed and so on," he said.
"It is required for the established structure to hold regular meetings, sign documents and solve these problems," he said. "Then a concrete result would be seen. The legal base is available. So, the actions must be implemented."
The agreement to create the consortium has been recently signed in Baku by the railway ministries of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kazakhstan.
Azerbaijani companies ADY Express and ACSC Logistics, Kazakhstan's KTZ Express and Georgia's Trans Caucasus Terminals LLC became members of the consortium.
The Supervisory Board included one representative from each member-company of the consortium, while Igbal Huseynov, deputy head of the Azerbaijan Railways CJSC, was elected chairman of the consortium's supervisory board.
Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Ukraine signed a protocol Jan. 14 to set competitive preferential tariffs for cargo transportation on the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route.
The Trans-Caspian International Transport Route runs from China to Europe through Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and Ukraine.
The first test container train running on the Shihezi (China)-Dostyk-Aktau-Alat route arrived in the Baku International Sea Trade Port August 3, 2015.
---
Follow the author on Twitter: @MaksimTsurkov