Transport Corridor to Simplify Azerbaijan’s Border Crossing Procedures

As the importance of developing maritime transport and ports along the entire Europe-Caucasus-Asia corridor is growing, the Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia (TRACECA) is working to simplify border crossing procedures by focusing on digitalization.

This was conveyed during the conference “Middle Corridor: Connecting economies through ports and air freight connectivity” in Baltimore on Thursday in the speech by the Secretary-General of the Permanent Secretariat Intergovernmental Commission TRACECA Asset Assavbayev.

The US-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) organized the conference in partnership with the Global Chamber and the Azerbaijani Embassy in the US.

According to Assavbayev, a number of policy and strategic documents that were adopted are ensuring the harmonious development of container transportation by rail, and an increase in the volume of multi-modal transportation of goods in order to further develop the corridor.

These policies were agreed upon within the framework of the last meeting of the TRACECA Intergovernmental Commission.

Data shows that the volume of cargo transportation through the Azerbaijani section of TRACECA in January-September of 2022 amounted to 37.829.600 million tons whereas the cargo turnover was 9.435.500 billion ton-kilometers.

The State Statistics Committee’s data shows that 53.9% of the cargo, or 20.376.100 million tons, was transported by road, 32.9% (12.435.700 million tons) by rail, and 13.2% (5.017.800 million tons) by sea.

Around 10.352.500 million tons, or 27.4%, of total cargo transported through TRACECA, was transit cargo.

Assavbayev emphasized that the Permanent Secretariat is actively working on the practical implementation of the abovementioned areas, also including the awareness of carriers and qualifications as well as increasing the efficiency of maritime transportation.

Back in October, the Permanent Secretariat announced that TRACECA member countries launched the first pilot transportation of goods using the global transit document (GTrD), the results of which are expected to be considered at the next meeting of the working group tentatively scheduled for January 2023.

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