The transport administrations of China and Bulgaria have appealed to the Georgian Ministry of Economic Development with request to participate in a meeting of experts under the project on attraction of additional cargo to the transport corridor Europe-CaucasusвЂ"Asia (TRACECA), to be held in Tbilisi, Georgia, on 5-6 December 2005, the Azerbaijan State Railway Department (ASRD) told Trend.
"We expect the reply to be positive, as the major part of container cargo is transported from China to Europe,” a representative of the ASRD said.
The key objective of the meeting in Tbilisi is to define the final discussions on commissioning of the presentation containers under project. Attending the event will be representatives from the Transport Ministries of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kazakhstan. The commissioning of the container train in the current stage comprised of 28 carriages, will an advertising action, which would promote increase in the cargo transportation via TRACECA in 2006.
“The meeting will also define operatorship, which would attract the additional cargo to the corridor and regulate the relevant issues,” the same source underlined, adding the plans of selecting a sub-contractor.
Late this October Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kazakhstan agreed upon application of identical tariffs on transportation of container cargo via the corridor in a working meeting held in Aktau port. Tariffs comprise $0,022 per 1 ton/km.