Work on the construction of the 144-km Rasht-Astara rail leg of Iran’s section of the International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC), the 3,500km multimodal trade corridor that will halve the journey time between India and Russia, will begin next year, the head of Azerbaijan Railways said yesterday, after the authorities in Baku agreed to extend Iran a $500m loan for the project.
The line is scheduled for completion in 2020 and will make it possible to transport freight from St Petersburg to Mumbai without having to pass through the Suez Canal. The new route will cut the journey time between the two cities from 45 days down to 25 days, and ultimately to two weeks once all planned new technology has been installed.
Export cargo from Mumbai will initially be transported by sea to the port of Bandar Abbas on Iran’s southern coast and from there by train to Rasht where it will forwarded by truck to Astara on the Azeri border before rejoining the rail network for the final leg of its journey up to St Petersburg via Moscow.
In March last year investors from Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia agreed competitive transit rates of no more than $3000 per container along the corridor which is to be operated by RZD Logistics, the logistics division of Russian Railways RZD logistics division.
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