Russia plans to participate in the development of two promising transport corridors that are associated with the North-South ITC. The General Director of the Association “Business Center for Economic Development of the CIS” Vadim Ganin spoke about this at the Second Meeting of the CIS Transport Business Dialogue.

One of them is the creation of a multimodal corridor Russia – Caspian Sea – Turkmenistan – Uzbekistan – Kyrgyzstan or the Southern Transport Corridor.

On the territory of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, it will be possible to use railways or, alternatively, heavy vehicles for transporting goods. Moreover, the Kyrgyz side is considering this option as a priority. At first, containers from Kyrgyzstan are expected to be delivered to the seaport of Turkmenbashi on trailers. Then on ferries to Russia, to Astrakhan, where there are several dozen terminals capable of receiving a variety of cargo.

According to the Kyrgyz side, at first the republic is ready to provide a daily flow of forty cars. In the future, it may increase to 150-200 heavy trucks per day. But in order to service such a volume of traffic, the issue of ferry service will need to be resolved.

If the interstate project enters the implementation stage, a logistics center will be created in the port special economic zone of Turkmenistan, in which goods from Kyrgyzstan will be stored before being sent to Russia, and the parties will open a regular shipping line for cargo carriers.

The second project is the creation of the Trans-Afghan Corridor, initiated by Uzbekistan back in 2021. The new transport corridor should connect the EU, Belarus, Russia, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and further the states of Southeast Asia. It can interface with the Southern Transport Corridor. Work on the feasibility study of the project is planned to be completed by July 2024.