On April the 13th, 2021, the 3rd meeting of the Working Group on the coordination and development of the “North-South” international transport corridor was held via video communication. The meeting was attended by the representatives of Russia, Germany, Iran, India, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. In the focus attention were the results of the work carried out by the participating parties to strengthen coordination and development of the “North-South” international transport corridor, as well as issues related to the further more active cargo transportation along this corridor. As it was noted, in the context of the incident in the Suez Canal, the agenda is the development of new routes for cargo transportation. In this regard, ITC the “North-South” has great perspective views. The discussion showed a high interest of the countries participating in the Working Group in taking effective measures to strengthen and use the potential of their transport systems. Turkmenistan is a transit country and attaches a great importance to the integration of its transport system into regional and continental transport and transit corridors. The President of Turkmenistan stands for broad international engagement in this direction. On the initiative of Turkmenistan, the UN General Assembly has adopted three Resolutions: “The role of transport and transit corridors in providing international cooperation for sustainable development” (2014), “On the way towards comprehensive interworking between all modes of transport in order to promote the creation of sustainable multimodal transit corridors” (2015), “Strengthening of relations between all modes of transport to achieve the sustainable development goals” (2017).
Putting forward constructive initiatives, Turkmenistan, together with the partners, has implemented and continues to implement large projects in the region. One of these projects is the Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran railway, built by the order of the President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, which constitutes the eastern route of the “North-South” ITC. Turkmen railway workers has laid not only the longest section, which together with the side tracks is 825 km, but also performed a huge scope of works on the arrangement of the highway, having erected dozens of engineering structures, railway stations, depots, stations and siding tracks, as well as other infrastructure facilities. Besides, along the route there has been built a new settlement Serhetyaka.
With the construction of new International Sea Port of Turkmenbashi new opportunities for the development of the “North-South” ITC has been opened. On December the 3rd, 2020, the first container ship has arrived in Astrakhan from Turkmenistan by sea. At the present moment, by the order of the President of Turkmenistan, a project on creating a logistics center of Turkmenistan in the port economic zone of the Astrakhan region has been currently implemented. Development of the “North-South” ITC opens up good prospects for logistics companies of Turkmenistan.
