Azerbaijan's Logistics Influence Grows in Eurasia, Says President Aliyev

President Ilham Aliyev has highlighted the transportation and logistics potential of Azerbaijan at the BRICS summit held earlier this week in Kazan, Russia.

On Thursday, at the plenary session of the 16th BRICS Summit in the Outreach/BRICS+ format, President Aliyev said the geographical location and modern infrastructure of Azerbaijan open ample opportunities to reshape the Eurasian trade.

“Azerbaijan has become one of the world’s key transportation and logistical hubs. The East-West and North-South transport corridors pass through our territory. All segments of these transportation routes within the territory of Azerbaijan are operating successfully,” President Aliyev said.

He added that the sharp rise in cargo traffic through the territory of Azerbaijan encourages additional investments into the projects to enhance the capacity of these corridors.

Azerbaijan holds a critical position in both the East-West and North-South transport corridors, connecting Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, and boosting economic cooperation in the region.

The country’s 3,000-km railway grid has been modernized significantly, with major upgrades to its East-West and North-South lines. The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway on the East-West route, known as the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR) or the Middle Corridor, links Azerbaijan with Georgia and Türkiye, providing a shorter, faster, and safer transit route to Europe. In May, Azerbaijan Railways announced the completion of the USD 250 million project for increasing the BTK’s throughput capacity from one million to five million tons.

Since January, over 210 block trains, including over 420,000 tons of both import and transit cargo, have been sent from China via the Middle Corridor toward Azerbaijan. By this yearend, more than 300 trains are expected to travel westward. Beijing intends to send at least 1,000 trains on this route per annum. In 2023, a total of 105,265 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent) containers were transported by Azerbaijan Railways, which is 30 percent more than in 2022.

In the first nine months of 2024, cargo volume along the TITR surged by 70 percent, reaching 3.4 million tons. Container shipments have made up the significant share in total freight volume along this route, tripling compared to the same period last year to reach 34,600 TEU.

Additionally, container transit from China grew by more than 20 times since the beginning of this year.

The Port of Baku, a key logistics hub in Azerbaijan receiving the freight before boarding the trains, has been developed to handle multimodal cargo efficiently. As the largest trade port on the Caspian Sea shores, it serves as a vital transit point for goods moving east-west and north-south with 15 million tons of annual handling capacity. The next development phases of the port will put this capacity at 25 million tons.

Azerbaijan is improving its road infrastructure, with highways connecting to neighboring countries and facilitating cross-border trade. In October 2023, the Baku-Guba-Russia toll road, a 150-kilometer, first-class highway was inaugurated to facilitate the connectivity in the region. This high-quality four-lane highway is a crucial part of the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), offering a 13-kilometer shorter route than the older road.

On the INSTC, in May, Azerbaijan Railways (ADY) also successfully completed the reconstruction of the cargo yard located in the Astara district of Azerbaijan to ensure the faster handling of significantly increasing cargo transshipments along this route. According to preliminary estimates, the operation of the renovated Astara Terminal will increase transit cargo transportation along the INSTC by 10-15% by the end of this year.