Gholam-Hossein Shafeie, chairman of the Mashhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Transport Committee, mentioned the region’s transit market’s competitiveness on Sunday, saying, “Competitors are creating alternative routes by spending huge amounts of money to replace Iran in the transit market.”
Stating that Turkey has made several efforts to strengthen the Trans-Caspian Corridor for transiting goods between East and West, he added: “With the integration of the Trans-Caspian Corridor in the Silk Road Project, this corridor will be connected with the China-Central Asia-West Asia corridor that passes through Iran.”
“In this period, due to the change in global transport routes, new opportunities have been provided for Iran, and we should take full advantage of such opportunities”, Shafeie added, referring to the recent changes in the world, including the war between Russia and Ukraine.
To entice more countries to join the project, the Islamic Republic has taken significant steps to develop its railway network, as well as its ports and shipping infrastructure.
Using the capacities of the International North-South Transit Corridor (INSTC), Iran will not only be able to increase the volume of trade with Russia and the countries of the region, but it will also be able to gain a significant share of the annual transit of the mentioned countries.
Russia is currently proposing to participate in some railway projects in Iran in order to accelerate the development of the Islamic Republic’s railway network along the mentioned route.
The spat between Europe and Russia over the Ukraine war, which resulted in harsh sanctions being imposed on the country, prompted Russia to look for new ways to distribute its goods around the world, particularly in Asia, and primarily through the INSTC.
One of the major advantages of INSTC, according to official data, is that the cost of transporting goods through this corridor is 30% lower. It also cut the time it takes to transport goods from India to Russia via the Suez Canal in half.
Iran can use this transit route to distribute European commodities in the shortest amount of time and at the lowest possible cost compared to other routes to the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf.
Source : tehrantimes