Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan.6
By Sadraddin Aghjayev – Trend:
The second container train exporting freight from Turkey in transit via Azerbaijan has reached Chinese Xi’an city, being the destination point, ADY Container LLC, Azerbaijan Railway CJSC’s affiliate told Trend.
The company stressed that it’s for the first time that the container train from Turkey’s Istanbul to China arrived at the border with Kazakhstan within just 10 days.
Moreover, starting from 2021, the container trains will regularly run on the above route twice a month.
The freight train proceeded through the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway route and the East-West transport corridor to Turkish Ankara, Sivas, and Kars, after which it arrived in Azerbaijan through Georgia. Further, the trains were transited via the port of Alat (Baku) to the port of Aktau (Kazakhstan) by the Beket Ata feeder ship, owned by Kazmortransflot, which is operated by ADY Container, then to the city of Horgos at the Kazakh-Chinese border and finally delivered to Xi’an city.
The total length of the route of the freight train consisting of 42 containers with Turkish goods is 8,693 kilometers (2 continents, 2 seas, and 5 countries).
According to the State Railway Department of Turkey (TCDD), the estimated travel time from Turkey to China is 12 days.
Besides, the operators of the second export train, which departed from Istanbul to Chinese Xi'an city via the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway, are members of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TMTM) - ADY Container (Azerbaijan), KTZ Express (Kazakhstan), GR Logistics (Georgia) and Pacific Eurasia Logistics (Turkey).
As earlier reported, the first freight train carrying export goods from Turkey to China arrived at the Port of Baku on December 10, 2020, after which the cargo was loaded onto the Beket Ata feeder ship for 6-7 hours and went to the Kazakh Aktau port.
In addition, during 2020, a total of 12,672 TEU containers were transported by feeder ships via TMTM across the Caspian Sea.
-----
Follow the author on Twitter: @agdzhaev