BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 1. France is ready to contribute to the development of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR, or Middle Corridor), French President Emmanuel Macron said at the opening of the Kazakhstan-France Business Forum in Astana, Trend reports.
"Kazakhstan is a connecting bridge between Europe and Asia. It is important to develop partnerships through transport routes, primarily through the Middle Corridor," he said.
In addition, the French president highly appreciated Kazakhstan's goals to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. He expressed his readiness to support Kazakhstan in this direction.
Macron also noted the broad prospects for cooperation in the agri-food sector to ensure food security.
The Middle Corridor is a multilateral institutional development linking the containerized rail freight transport networks of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the European Union through the economies of Central Asia, the Caucasus, Türkiye, and Eastern Europe. The multilateral, multi-modal transport institution links Caspian and Black Sea ferry terminals with rail systems in the PRC, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Türkiye, Ukraine, and Poland.
The Middle Corridor serves to increase freight traffic from China to Türkiye, as well as to European countries and in the reverse direction.
The block train running along this corridor delivers cargo from China to Europe in an average of 20–25 days. This is one of the main advantages of the transport corridor.