Transport potential of North-South corridor's eastern branch put at 15 mln tpy - Iran's ambassador to Russia

ASTRAKHAN. Oct 26 (Interfax) - The freight transport potential of the eastern branch of the North-South international transport corridor (ITC) is 15 million tonnes per year, Iran's ambassador to Russia, Kazem Jalali said at the North-South ITC international forum in Astrakhan on Wednesday.

The eastern branch of the corridor, from Iran on the Persian Gulf to Turkmenistan, then to Kazakhstan and finally Russia, is now completed and "the potential for transporting freight along this route is 15 million tonnes" per year, Jalali said.

The route is currently used very little, with shipments totalling less than 300,000 tonnes per year, he said.

Freight from Russia and Belarus is shipped along the North-South corridor through Astrakhan Region to Iran, Iraq, India, the United Arab Emirates and other countries.

The North-South ITC is a multimodal route for transporting passengers and freight that stretches 7,200 km from St. Petersburg to the port in Mumbai. Much of it runs along Russian railways, which make up 33-53% of the overland part of the corridor depending on the route. The main goal of developing the North-South corridor is to serve Russian foreign trade with countries in the Caucasus, the Caspian region, Central Asia and Persian Gulf countries.

Russia's Transport Ministry expects freight traffic along the corridor to grow to 17.6 million tonnes in 2023 from 14.5 million tonnes in 2022, and estimates it could potentially grow to 41 million tonnes by 2030.

More than 150 companies from Iran, Pakistan, Oman, the UAE, India, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Belarus and other countries are participating in the North-South ITC forum, which is being held on October 25 and 26.