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Azerbaijan minister says vital Europe-Asia link is transporting more freight faster than ever

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Freight transit through Azerbaijan, a vital part of the trade route known as the Middle Corridor, has increased by 70% in ten months but journey times have halved. The country’s Minister for Digital Development and Transport has updated MEPs on plans to further improve both speed and capacity, writes Political Editor Nick Powell.

When Azerbaijan’s Transport Minister, Rashad Nabiyev, addressed a round table in the European Parliament, he recalled that there had once been scepticism in Brussels about the importance of the transit route through his country. But a vision over decades from the government in Baku had been vindicated.

Gas pipelines were helping to guarantee greater energy security for Europe and there was now a focus on overcoming bottlenecks along the Middle Corridor as governments and shipping companies look for an alternative to consigning freight through Russia. Goods from Kazakhstan and its neighbours, notably China, China come across the Caspian Sea and through Azerbaijan and Georgia, either reaching the Black Sea or continuing by land across Türkiye.

Azerbaijan’s Transport Minister, Rashad Nabiyev

Making better of existing infrastructure had brought average transit times down from 38 days to 21 and the Middle Corridor states were aiming for 18 days. Minister Nabiyev said that the improvements so far had been achieved “in a very manual way” and one of the strongest elements in plans for the next five years was the digitalisation of the process.

The importance of digitalisation was stressed by the Secretary-General of the World Customs Organisation, Kunio Mikuriya. He said it was important to have harmonised, paperless and transparent border procedures, “a seamless flow of reliable data in a timely manner”,as he put it. He added that such a requirement went beyond customs formalities, railway systems also need to digitise and share their paperwork.

Kunio Mikurio suggested that EU funding should aid such capacity-builing, as part of the Global Gateway initiative. The Turkish Ambassador to the EU, Mehmet Kemal Bozay, said Türkiye and Azerbaijan had become the gatekeepers of the Global Gateway. He pointed out that the Middle Corridor was the shortest and therefore greenest route from Asia to Europe.

Koert Debeuf from the Free University of Brussels (VUB) said that European policy had often been very reactive and that the EU was reacting now to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and to China’s Belt and Road initiative. He urged a greater sense of history, of how the Middle Corridor was reviving the Silk Road. He also called for a grand vision about connecting people, not just cities and pipelines.

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The round table was shown an expert presentation on how Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Georgia were working together to get to a capacity of 15 million tonnes a year in the near future. This included operational improvements at ports, terminals and other complex junctions, buying new railway locomotives and wagons and developing an integrated transit product for shippers to purchase, with a control centre in Baku.

Potentially, a further 15 million tonnes’ annual capacity could be addded by reopening the Zangazur corridor, with a new rail link across Armenia, linking Nakhchivan with the rest of Azerbaijan and creating an additional route to Turkey. “We will one day manage it”, said Rashad Nabiyev, who also outlined the improvements to road and rail in areas of Karabakh formerly occupied by Armenia.

Latvian MEP Andris Ameriks said there should be “no boundaries” to cooperation between the EU and Azerbaijan, “an important bridge between Europe and Asia”. From Poland, Ryszard Czarnecki MEP said the Middle Corridor was “an opportunity to be seized”. Another Polish MEP, Tomasz Poręba, explained how the Via Carpathia road project, running the length of the EU’s eastern border, from the Baltic states to Greece would add to the potential of the Middle Corridor for goods to reach the entire European market.

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