Russia and Azerbaijan establish AzRusTrans company

Russia and Azerbaijan have established a joint venture in the framework of the development of the international transport corridor 'North-South': the company, established by the Russian carrier 'Rusagrotrans' and the Azerbaijan Railways, was named 'AzRusTrans'.

Today, 'AzRusTrans' was presented to Azerbaijani shippers and cargo owners. The chairman and the deputy chairmen of the Azerbaijan Railways, Javid Gurbanov, Vusal Aslanov and Igbal Huseynov, as well as the general director of 'Rusagrotrans' Yuri Kim, a member of the Russian carrier's board of directors, Konstantin Zasov, and the chairman of the board of 'AzRusTrans', Oleg Rogachev, told the audience about the possibilities and objectives of the company.

In particular, the joint venture will benefit in the transport of goods between Russia and Azerbaijan, Iran, Georgia and Turkey, and the transport corridors 'North-South' and 'Baku-Tbilisi-Kars' will be able to double the volume of rail traffic in the region. The transportation of grain by the Russia-Iran, Russia-Georgia and Russia-Turkey routes is the most promising in this regard.

As Javid Gurbanov explained at the presentation, AzRusTrans was established to enhance trade relations between Russia and Azerbaijan, in connection with the completion of the international transport corridor (ITC) North-South.

"The North-South project is the merit of the leaders of our two countries. On our territory, it is implemented by 90%, 7 km of the bridge between Iran and Azerbaijan have already been built, and in the near future we will announce the completion of construction. This road will bring big dividends to both Russia and Iran and Azerbaijan. We also plan to built terminals in Iran's Astara," he said.

Konstantin Zasov, in turn, noted that today Azerbaijan is a unique bridge between Russia, Iran and other countries-consumers of Russian products. "This unique location provides endless possibilities in the development of transit potential of Azerbaijan Railways. We plan the volume of transit at the level of 3-4 million tons per year. Our main task today is to create an infrastructure, which enables to secure cargo with all necessary technological conditions, first of all, a terminal on the border between Azerbaijan and Iran. We count on the investment program of the joint venture, in the coming 3-4 years, investments in the development of the border infrastructure will amount $15-20 million," he noted.

"The creation of the joint venture has already solved a number of issues, in particular, an access to the waggon fleet: today it consists of almost 70 thousand cars of different nomenclature. Of course, there is an infrastructure of the Azerbaijani railway, we should build a border infrastructure and optimize tariff conditions for cargo movement to Iran. We are also discussing the cargo flows from Kazakhstan to Iran and Turkey. Commercial ideas, which are possible due to the establishment of 'AzRusTrans', are endless. We will try to implement all our plans as soon as possible," Konstantin Zasov stressed.

The company's projected increase in the volume of transit through Azerbaijan is up to 2 million tons of cargo per year by 2020, the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza reports from Baku.

The company will also  transport other agricultural goods, timber and fertilizers, as well as construction materials, containerised, packaged and fluid cargoes, by offering customers a full range of transit services across Russia and Azerbaijan, including the transhipment at ports, keeping track of the location of wagons, customs procedures, preparation of all the documents, including phytosanitary and veterinary controls.