Persian Gulf- Black Sea Transit Corridor: Armenia Takes Practical Steps

• 03.07.2018, 15:46
•  Region

Armenia is currently negotiating with Georgia, Bulgaria, Greece and Iran for the creation of the Persian Gulf - Black Sea international transportation and transit corridor. According to Armenpress, this was stated by the chief of staff of the ministry of transportation, communication and information technologies Samvel Amirkhanyan. 

According to the official the development and strengthening of trade and economic relations in the region is one of the cornerstones of this project. It aims at facilitating international cargo shipments and transit, simplification of procedures, standardization, reduction of transportation spending, improvement of road safety conditions and attraction of cargo transits from other countries.

“The project will contribute to Armenian shippers to enter international markets through simplified procedures by using land and sea shipments. The project will also enable to accelerate and facilitate the transit of perishable goods upon crossing the borders of contract party states,” he said.

It should be reminded, that earlier in February Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said at the Munich Security Conference that Armenia is negotiating with all stakeholder countries for creating the Black Sea - Persian Gulf transit corridor. Bulgaria’s President also announced the project during his visit to Armenia.

It should be noted that due to this project Armenia can turn into a transit transport zone. In case of successful implementation of the project, Armenia will get out of the blockade, turning into an important transit area, besides, the project will contribute to the economic growth of our country.

Info

The project of creating a new transport corridor for the Persian Gulf - Black Sea is put forward by Iran. It is expected that it will connect Armenia, Iran, Georgia and Bulgaria. Iranian trucks should pass through Armenia and Georgia by the new corridor and, reaching the Black Sea, get to Bulgaria, Greece and even to Italy. For all this will be used roll-on/roll-off (RORO) ships.

Iran-Armenia cooperation within the framework of Persian Gulf - Black Sea corridor has started since 2014, and in 2016 the first multimodal transportation experience took place. 2 containers of test version were transported from Germany - the port of Kostanas, to Poti, then to Armenia through the railway "Yeraskh", from here, by car, to Iran. For transportation of the containers from Poti to "Yeraskh" took 38 hours, which is considered to be a relatively good indicator.