Central Asia, Azerbaijan, Türkiye, Georgia mull increasing railway transportation

The heads of the railway departments of the participating states of the international multimodal transport and transit route CASCA+ (Central Asia, South Caucasus and Türkiye) discussed increasing freight traffic in Ashgabat, said the official newspaper Neutral Turkmenistan, Report informs via TASS.

The meeting was attended by delegations of ministries and relevant departments, as well as logistics companies and enterprises from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Türkiye, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

The multimodality of the route, passing through two seas and the territories of numerous countries, makes it possible to effectively use the capabilities of this corridor. Since the launch of the route in 2019, about 30,000 containers have been transported. The event participants noted that their goal is to increase the volume of container transportation to 30,000 containers this year. In their opinion, this will also contribute to the activation of transportation and the expansion of the range of goods along the North-South and East-West transport corridors.

The CASCA+ route was created in 2019 in Tashkent at a meeting of the heads of the state railways of these countries. Türkiye joined the project in December 2021. The “+” sign in the name of the route indicates a willingness to accept new potential participants interested in transportation along the route, the ultimate goal of which is to connect the states of Southeast Asia, in particular, China, with Europe.