North-South Corridor will be beneficial for Russia and Azerbaijan

The North-South international transport corridor will allow the time it takes to transport goods from India to Russia by half, JSC Russian Railways posted this information on its official website.

As part of the development of the international transport corridor (ITC), North-South JSC Russian Railways and JSC Azerbaijani Railways (BR/ADY) agreed to cooperate in attracting cargo flows to the Azerbaijani and Russian rail networks through the organization of transportation of goods via the India-Iran-Azerbaijan-Russia route and vice versa. JSC Russian Railways Logistics and LLC ADY Express will become logistics operators to implement the project. The first shipments are planned for the end of March 2016.

ITC will become a link bridge connecting the railways of Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia.

"Now cargo flows from India to the European part of the Russian Federation are carried out via marine transportation (route A). The expected travel time from Jawaharlal Nehru Port (Mumbai) to Moscow is about 40 days. The new multi-modal route B will include the use of marine, rail and road transport and this will reduce the time it takes to transport by half and to reduce the period of transportation by up to 14 days,'' Trend cites the statement.

Earlier, the director of the Regional Studies Center of situational monitoring at RANHiGS, Alexander Savchenko, in an interview with a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza drew attention to the fact that the implementation of this project will give Russia a number of advantages.

"Firstly, we may expect an increase in transit. And secondly, the corridor is improving their own transport network, which needs modernization. The benefits are obvious. In addition, centers of economic power are changing now, as well as geopolitical and geo-economic nuances, which is why the North-South direction is becoming more and more popular," he said.

The political scientist Rovshan Ibrahimov noted in an interview with a VK correspondent that the project is promising because it will bring the countries of Southeast Asia together, especially India with European ports.

"According to the pilot testing conducted, transportation of this corridor may be advantageous compared with the traditional ways of transporting goods by sea through the Suez Canal, both in time and in terms of price,'' he concluded.