Bandar Abbas is hosting an international three-day conference on trade and logistics of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), Iran News reports.
About 120 officials from ECO states, including Turkey, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan and Afghanistan, and international organizations will arrive for the meeting.
Iranian minister for roads and urban planning, director general of the Iranian Railways Company, head of the Organization of Ports and Navigation of Iran, head of the Organization for Roads and Traffic of Iran, Secretary General of ECO Mohammed Yahya Maroofi and a spokesman of the EU are at the conference.
A first transit train of the Bandar-Abbas – Alma-Ata line of 4,300 km will be launched today.
Iran, Pakistan and Turkey lack access to oceans. Bandar-Abbas is the best transit port in the region, allowing Middle Asian states to enter open waters. It should activate traffic between the East and West. The most significant transport corridors are Islamabad-Tehran-Istanbul, Afghanistan-Tajikistan-
Bandar-Abbas shared 40% of transit freighting in the first half of 2011. The Hormozgan Province had over 1.8 million tons of cargo transported for Middle Asia via roads, over 133,000 tons using the Shahid Rejai complex. Shakhid Bahonar is one of the main ports of the North-South International Transport Corridor.
