BAKU, Azerbaijan, Nov. 5
By Fakhri Vakilov-Trend:
The Ministry of Transport of Uzbekistan expects to launch pilot transit traffic on the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway in 2020, Trend reports with reference to the ministry.
The leadership of the Ministry of Transport of Uzbekistan and Deputy Chairman of Azerbaijan Railways CJSC Igbal Huseynov discussed in Tashkent the development prospects of the transit potential of the two countries and the organization of multimodal transport along the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan-Azerbaijan-Georgia route.
The parties agreed to speed up joint work on launching pilot transit traffic on the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway route with access to the seaports of Georgia and Turkey in early 2020.
It was noted that for efficient transit potential, it is necessary to create a coordination committee of representatives of transport structures of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. The Azerbaijani company proposed to form and hold a meeting of such a committee in December.
In Dec. 2017, Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev approved the program of diversification of foreign trade routes for the transportation of goods for 2018-2022.
On Oct. 30, 2017, a solemn ceremony on the occasion of the opening of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway was held at the Baku International Sea Trade Port.
The BTK railway has been built on the basis of the Azerbaijani-Georgian-Turkish intergovernmental agreement. At the initial stage, the volume of freight traffic will be at the level of 6.5 million tons of cargo, and up to one million passengers will be transported through this railway.
The BTK can significantly reduce the time of delivery of goods from China to Europe via Azerbaijan, which makes this route especially attractive.
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