Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Sept. 4
By Huseyn Hasanov- Trend:
A four-sided high-level meeting on the establishment of an Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan-Iran-Oman transport corridor was held in Ashgabat Sept. 3, the Turkmen government said.
This ambitious project aims to further enhance the mutually beneficial trade and economic cooperation among the countries of Central Asia and the Middle East.
The agreement on the establishment of an international transport and transit corridor was signed among the governments of Iran, Oman, Qatar, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan at the level of foreign ministers of these countries in Ashgabat on April 25, 2011.
The new corridor will allow the Central Asian countries to be connected with the ports of the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman via an optimal route in the long term. According to the observers, Russia and China can also get a way to new solvent markets. This can give a trans-regional project even more economical attractiveness.
The participating countries interested in cooperation believe that the initiative was timely and will contribute to further progress and prosperity of each of the countries in the region by expanding the trade volume and reducing the cost of transit of goods.
At the expert level, it is necessary to examine the possibilities of the prospects for cooperation in the fields of customs, transportation by vehicles, trains and ships and joint investments. The project is particularly important for Uzbekistan, which has no direct way to the sea.
Turkmenistan and Iran with the participation of Kazakhstan in 2014 will complete implementing a joint project to build a new North-South railway corridor. Goods can be freely transported to the Persian Gulf countries, the Indian Ocean, Europe and other regions of the world via newly created transport and trade route. According to the preliminary calculations, the annual transportation volume of own and transit cargo will reach 10-12 million tons.