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What cargoes to be transported via BTK?

Business Materials 23 August 2017 17:56 (UTC +04:00)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 23

By Maksim Tsurkov – Trend:

At the first stage, mainly container cargoes are planned to be transported from China to Europe via the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway, which is expected to be launched in October of 2017, Akif Mustafayev, national secretary of the Intergovernmental Commission (IGC) TRACECA (Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia) in Azerbaijan, told Trend, Aug. 23.

Mustafayev noted that, such transportation from China to Europe is already being carried out through Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland and further to London.

“Just recently, two container trains were again prepared to be sent from China. They pass through the checkpoint on the border of Kazakhstan and China and from thereon they will move further through Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus to Europe. This procedure is facilitated, since Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus are parts of one Customs Union, and there are no problems with crossing the borders. As a result, the shipment from the Chinese border with Kazakhstan to London takes only 15-16 days,” said Mustafayev.

Meanwhile, trains exchange their wheels at the border of Belarus and Poland in order to switch to the European type gauge of 1,453 mm, added the national secretary.

He noted that, once the BTK is ready, Azerbaijan will be aiming for transporting containers from China, Kazakhstan, further through the Caspian Sea, and through Azerbaijan via the BTK to Turkey and Europe.

This will be a good alternative for carriers, said the national secretary adding that, this route will take approximately two weeks.

“Nevertheless, for the past two years container cargoes have been transported from China through Kazakhstan and Russia in the form of experimental trains, but only 4-5 convoys, with 62 containers each, have passed so far, since not all of the issues are still fully resolved,” said Mustafayev.

He went on to say that, questions that may arise, such as documentation, track width, etc, will be solved gradually over the time.

“Of course, immediately with the launch of the BTK, there will be a resurgence, works to eliminate possible shortcomings will be intensified and, eventually, positive results will be obtained, added the national secretary.

According to the expert, the real volume of cargo transportation of five million tons (and this is mainly container cargoes) can be achieved in the first two years.

“We will talk about volumes from 10 to 20 million tons in the next 5-10 years. This issue requires daily work, because all of the issues can not be resolved by the launch of the BTK alone. The traffic should be simplified. This is related not only to our country, but also to our partners – Kazakhstan, Georgia, Turkey and European countries,” noted Mustafayev.

Nevertheless, there isn’t any doubt that if problems are found they will be resolved immediately, because not only the operators and freight forwarders, but also the leadership of the countries located along the route are interested in this, added the national secretary.

The expert also noted the importance of a railway tunnel through the Bosphorus, which is being currently constructed.

“There is a subway under the Bosphorus, trucks are plying on automobile bridges, but there is no railway tunnel for the freight trains yet. Therefore, our trains operating on the BTK will mainly be oriented towards Turkey and then, when the railway traffic of freight trains through the Bosphorus to Europe is opened, they will easily access Bulgaria, Italy and other countries, all the way up to the United Kingdom,” said Mustafayev.

The BTK railway is being constructed on the basis of the Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish intergovernmental agreement. The peak capacity of the railway will be at 17 million tons of cargo per year. At the initial stage, this figure will be one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @MaksimTsurkov

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