“I must say that both the railway and automobile segments of the North-South corridor have been fully implemented and are successfully operating on the territory of Azerbaijan. At the moment, we are actively modernising the railway segment of this corridor to increase its throughput capacity. We are considering the possibility of transporting up to 15 million tonnes of cargo per year, with the potential to increase this to 30 million tonnes,” President Aliyev said during a joint press conference.

“This year we have already allocated approximately $120 million (in the dollar equivalent) for the modernization of this railway section to achieve the required throughput capacity,” he said.

INSTC connects Russian ports on the Baltic and Arctic with ports on the shores of the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. This project will provide rail communication from the port of Murmansk to Iran's Bandar Abbas in the Gulf.

INSTC contains three main routes relative to the Caspian Sea, including the TransCaspian Route: through the ports of Astrakhan, Olya, and Makhachkala in Russia, and the ports of Bandar Anzali, Amirabad, and Nowshahr in Iran.

The second is Eastern Route along the existing railway line through Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Iran.

The Western Route extends from Astrakhan through Samur across Azerbaijan to the Astara station, and through Iran via the under-construction Astara-Rasht-Qazvin line.

Putin highlighted the joint plans of Baku and Moscow regarding the implementation of the INSTC project, which, according to him, will allow the two nations to reach the shores of the Indian Ocean and utilise transport cooperation for mutual benefit and interest.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)