TRACECA: Delays in Chinese ports will increase interest in corridor passing through Azerbaijan

Some problems with container transportation from China through the TRACECA corridor have seriously affected the world market, National Secretary for Azerbaijan of the Intergovernmental Commission on the Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia (TRACECA) Rufat Bayramov told Report.

Bayramov said that the reason for the problem was the restrictions imposed in connection with the pandemic in Chinese ports: "The production system is a chain and interdependent system. China has stringent quarantine laws. If a virus is detected in an enterprise, its activity is suspended. As a result, many ports in eastern China are closed. Some ports do not operate, while some do not have any terminals operating. This disrupts the chain process. As a result, the cost of ocean freight has risen more than ten times. Due to the limited operation of the ports, cargo transportation is not timely. The process of unloading and dispatching containers is protracted. Currently, the containerization process from China to Europe takes two or three months, while it used to take 40 days. In this case, both the price of the goods rises and the shipping companies raise prices due to container restrictions."

The National Secretary believes that this process will lead to a focus on the prospects of the corridor passing through Azerbaijan and Central Asia: "The prospects for overland corridors and the corridor through Azerbaijan are expanding, and we expect freight traffic to increase in this section."

The European Union's Transport Corridor Europe Caucasus Asia (TRACECA) program was launched at a conference in May 1993 in Brussels with the participation of trade and transport ministers (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan). The conference participants adopted the Brussels Declaration providing for the implementation of the TRACECA technical assistance program.