A ROUTE AS SMOOTH AS SILK

This year the TRACECA [Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia] international transport co-operation programme celebrates its 20th anniversary. Initiated at the conference held in Brussels in May 1993 with the participation of the commerce and transport ministers of eight countries, the idea of reviving the Great Silk Road has attracted five more countries during the years that it has been in operation. For the moment not one of the states has regretted its decision, since a large number of local projects to restore old and create new transport infrastructure have been put into effect over the period within the TRACECA framework. For some years now the corridor has been making a profit for the budget of Azerbaijan, which was regarded as one of the key participants in the programme right from the start.

According to Azerbaijan's State Statistics Committee data, in 2012 56.9m tonnes of freight (5.5 per cent more than in 2011) and 260,900,000 passengers (8 per cent more) were transported through the territory of Azerbaijan along the Eurasian transport corridor.  All these operations boosted the income of the country's state budget; last year the income from the corridor was 443,200,000 manats (16.1 per cent higher) and the total income from passenger journeys was 92,000,000 manats (10.8 per cent higher).  

In principle, the figures suggest that the corridor is operating normally, but many experts believe that the corridor's capacity is not being used to the full. Moreover, the programme's co-ordinators assert that work to boost TRACECA's potential is going ahead apace and it won't belong before we get results.

Thus, in order to make the TRACECA corridor's development more attractive, the necessary studies have been done, recommendations have been put forward, training sessions, seminars and educational courses, the training of the specialists needed have been organised and the experience of other countries has been studied; every year various technical projects financed by the European Commission are implemented.

Moreover, multi-million projects to develop the transport infrastructure are being implemented by the corridor member- countries themselves. These projects include the creating the necessary road infrastructure, railways, in particular the building of an international seaport in Azerbaijan and the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway corridor. Various transport projects are also being implemented in other corridor countries, including Kazakhstan, Turkey and so forth.

 The TRACECA national secretary for Azerbaijan, Akif Mustafayev, states that the new transport infrastructure in Azerbaijan will make it possible to handle freight containers from China. "Approximately 12m containers are transported to Europe and America by sea every year," he stressed.

Correspondingly, the handling of several per cent of the freight containers (something like 360,000) from China will boost the volume of freight transportation along the corridor several fold.

Taking into account the operation of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway which is still under construction, and also the operation of the new port in the village of Alyat, which is to be ready in a few years time, it will be possible to handle a large volume of freight. Besides this, at the present time the railways in Azerbaijan are being upgraded and reconstructed and new rolling stock is being acquired," Mustafayev said.

It is moreover expected that the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, which has direct access to the European railway network, will transport 30m tonnes of freight annually. As regards the present seaport, which is situated in the centre of the capital, its geographical location considerably limits its cargo- handling possibilities. The new port, which will be located 65 km to the south of Baku in the village of Alyat, will have greater freight handling capacity.

The building of a new international seaport in the village of Alyat will be carried out in three stages. The first stage envisages the construction of two ferries and three freight-handling quays, where ships of the roll on/roll off type and ordinary  (universal) dry cargo vessels can be moored. The second stage will be the building of another three cargo-handling quays and the third stage will add two more cargo-handling quays. The port's capacity will be as much as 11,600,000 tonnes of freight per year.

Both of the above-mentioned transport projects are extremely important from the point of view of increasing the volume of cargoes transported along the TRACECA corridor and also for boosting Azerbaijan's transportation possibilities. Correspondingly, this will make it possible to set up a new transport corridor for freight from China, which will have great economic potential.

An obvious example of what is being done to make the most of the available opportunities offered by the transport corridor is the Silk Wind project, which is an initiative within the TRACECA programme. We recall that the aim of the project is to set up a train corridor to carry many different types of freight (containers/roll on-roll off) to include a system of advanced information between customs services and train operators in the countries involved in the project. The countries taking part in the project are planning to introduce a single freight transport tariff within the project's framework.

According to Akif Mustayev, the Azeri side is prepared to sign an intergovernmental agreement on the Silk Wind project. Its implementation envisages improving transport conditions and the handling of whole container trains from China to the centre of Western Europe. In this case we are talking about container and passenger transportation.

Touching on the signing of an intergovernmental agreement, Mustafayev noted that Kazakhstan, which is acting as the initiator of the project's implementation, is, like Azerbaijan, prepared to sign the document. In their turn, in Turkey and Georgia this matter is being agreed within the state, which means that this agreement is being approved by the appropriate ministries and departments. The intergovernmental agreement will only be signed after all the countries involved in the project complete the approval process.

Attracting Chinese freight container transport to the TRACECA corridor, as well as transportation along the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, will not, according to Mustafayev will not affect the volumes of freight handled at the Black Sea ports of Batumi and Poti in Georgia. The transportation of freight containers and passengers is envisaged here, so this will not have any impact on traditional cargoes such as oil and petroleum products, general and other cargoes being transported across the Black Sea," Mustafayev stressed.

The growth in cargo traffic, ensuring its dispatch to Europe will also lead to increased earnings from transit charges and, correspondingly, the greater significance of Azerbaijan as a transit country. Consequently, this will allow our republic to diversify the economy and lessen its dependence on the oil and gas sector.