Negotiation between the Republic of Azerbaijan and Europe for the development of the Middle Corridor

According to the report of the international group Tasnim news agency, citing the media of the Republic of Azerbaijan, “Rashad Nabif”, Minister of Digital Development and Transport of the Republic of Azerbaijan, after meeting with “Gret Jan Koopman”, Director General of the Development Department of the European Commission on May 4, wrote on Channel X: “We met with Gareth Jan Koopman, Director General of Neighborhood Negotiations and Expansion of the European Commission, who He lives in our country, we met. We discussed the cooperation between the European Union and Azerbaijan in the field of transport, especially the development of the Middle Corridor.

According to the information of the European Commission, the Russian attack on Ukraine is the importance of finding alternative reliable and efficient trade routes. between Europe and Asia that do not pass through Russia.

Therefore, on January 29 this year, the World Forum of Transit Investors on the transport connection of the European Union to Central Asia in Brussels was held, bringing together governments, financial institutions, businesses and civil society from Europe and Central Asia.

European Commission Executive Vice President Valdis Dombroskis announced that European and international financial institutions participating in This forum will allocate 10 billion euros to support and invest in sustainable transport connections in Central Asia.

He noted that the European Investment Bank signed memorandums of understanding with the governments of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, as well as The Development Bank of Kazakhstan has signed contracts worth a total of 1.47 billion euros. These loans will be possible according to the guarantees of the European Commission.

According to Dombroskis, the necessary investments to transform the Trans-Caspian transport corridor into the most modern, multimodal and efficient communication route between Europe and Central Asia within 15 day will be absorbed.

The European Commission said that a number of important commitments have been made in this forum as part of a total of 10 billion euros.

Middle Corridor includes cargo transportation from China to Turkey as well as to European countries and vice versa.

Europe-Caucasus-Asia Transportation Corridor is a project within the framework of technical assistance provided to Commonwealth of Nations countries. It is implemented with the support of the European Union. This project was approved in a conference held in Brussels in May 1993 with the presence of 8 countries (5 Central Asian republics and 3 Caucasian republics).

For the purposes of the European transport corridor Caucasus-Asia has been declared: a stable platform for bringing together interests, finding optimal ways to establish mutual and beneficial cooperation, including the development of economic relations, trade and transport connections in the regions of Europe, the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea and Asia. /p>

The Republic of Azerbaijan has attached importance to the development of the Middle Corridor and has focused on the implementation of projects in this direction.

Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev at the international meeting COP29 and Green Vision for Azerbaijan” which was held on April 23, emphasized: Today more than ever, the Middle Corridor is needed, and year by year the cargoes imported from China and passing through Azerbaijan are increasing. During the state visit of the President of Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan last month, we held a joint welcoming ceremony for the container train that left Sian and entered Baku. So this was a joint show of cooperation between our countries. It goes without saying that Kazakhstan and China cooperate more actively. However, Azerbaijan and China are also developing their cooperation very promisingly and result-oriented. Azerbaijan has increased significantly. In this way, in 2021, 85 thousand 293 units of transit transport with foreign vehicles were carried out through the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan, in 2022, 176 thousand 789 units and in 2023, 229 thousand 756 units of transit transport were carried out.

Thus, in the last three years, the total number of transit cargoes carried out by road transport through the Republic of Azerbaijan in 2021, 94 thousand 844 times, in 2022, 200 155 thousand and in 2023, it was 26 thousand 6143 times. In general, the transportation of transit goods by road has increased 2.8 times in the last 3 years.

All this shows that the Republic of Azerbaijan has fully fulfilled its obligations to realize the Middle Corridor in recent years. It has worked at the highest level. The country has implemented major projects related to the launch of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway line and increasing the loading capacity of the international sea trade port of Baku, as well as improving the transport and logistics infrastructure in this republic.

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