BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 16. This week it became known that the railway authorities of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Turkey participating in the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR) would establish a Middle Corridor joint venture, Trend reports.
The joint venture is scheduled to be officially registered in early or mid-2023, and it will provide high-quality intermodal transport and logistics services, harmonize cross-border tariffs, as well as introduce a unified IT platform for the full automation of cargo traffic services from China to Turkey.
Moreover, it became known that the approval of new rules by Azerbaijan’s Cabinet of Ministers for the admission of local carriers to international road shipments would increase their competitiveness in international markets, and increase their share in bilateral and transit traffic. This document will also allow Azerbaijani carriers to enhance their share in freight transport along the international East-West and North-South transport corridors.
This week, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan discussed the issue of expanding cargo transportation by rail. The sides agreed to continue interacting with participants in international and multimodal transport corridors for increasing the volume of cargo transportation, as well as speed up the passage of container trains.
Furthermore, this week, the Volga-Dnepr, a Moscow-based airline specializing in outsize and heavy freight, would carry out cargo traffic to a number of countries, including Azerbaijan, by the end of 2022.
Moscow would provide the Volga-Dnepr Group with orders worth nearly 9.7 billion rubles (about $129.6 million at the exchange rate of Russia's Central Bank) until the end of 2022.
It also became known that the Russian Sim-Trans Group LLC was ready for continuous wheat supplies to Azerbaijan. The company prepared grain crops for exporting to Azerbaijan in advance. It was reported that the supply of grain crops was growing by nearly 25-30 percent from season to season.
Sim-Trans Group LLC is preparing a number of projects for the export of non-agricultural products to Azerbaijan. Along with the Russian product export to Azerbaijan, the companies are exploring ways of supplying Azerbaijani products to Russia.