It is important to continue cooperation to develop the Europe-Caucasus-Asia transport corridor as an alternative route to bypass Russia. Vladyslav Kryklii, the Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine stated the above during a speech at the International Conference on the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Main Multilateral Agreement on International Transport for the Development of the Europe-Caucasus-Asia Corridor, which is being held in Baku, today, December 6, 2019.

The Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine noted that Azerbaijan is the heart of TRACECA and expressed his hope for multilateral cooperation that meets the expectations of TRACECA member countries.

According to the Minister, Ukraine is ready to offer a number of projects, the implementation of which will contribute to the realization of the transport potential of the TRACECA member countries: “There are potential routes from China and India through Central and South Asia, through the TRACECA countries to Eastern Europe and the Baltic countries. For the development of transportation, it is necessary to develop mutually beneficial logistics solutions for the transportation of goods in the direction of Europe-the Caucasus-Asia and vice versa. It is necessary to improve the conditions for organizing transportation using the advantages of the Viking and Zubr trains, including the continuation routes of these trains to the Caspian Sea. Ukrainian side already has the ability to carry out transportation from the port of Chornomorsk to the station Izov (Poland) not only on the SMGS consignment note, but also using the CIM European consignment note. We propose to use the potential of terminals located on the territory of the Ukrainian-Slovak border. Organization of the effective management of their work will make it possible to transport goods further to the countries of Central Europe,” Vladyslav Kryklii said.

The Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine noted that it is advisable to pay attention to the possibilities of Hungarian transport infrastructure and combined transportations: “We have already conducted several rounds of negotiations on optimization of the conditions of combined transportation, including the prospects of so-called piggyback transportation. The organization of efficient logistics in this direction will allow us to work out possible routes for transporting goods to Austria and further to the northern regions and ports of Italy. It is also worth to develop competitive conditions for cargo transportation from Iran. Representatives of the transport structures of Afghanistan and India are also ready to join this negotiation process, in particular, experts are ready to discuss the route using the ferry connection of port Bender-Abbas (Iran) - port Mumbai (India). Tajikistan is being considered the possibility to join to this transport route”

Vladyslav Kryklii stated that the TRACECA member countries can organize such a service so that the key producers prefer this particular transport corridor: “I am grateful to all TRACECA member countries for joint work. It is important to continue cooperation for the development of the transport corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia as an alternative route to bypass Russia. For this purpose, it is necessary to set the tariff for transportation of both land sections of the route and sea. The timing of the delivery of goods to their destination is important, for which the transport departments of our countries need to pay key attention to the proper quality of infrastructure.”

The Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine outlined such priorities as the development of multimodal transportation and the creation of digital transport corridors: “The use of multimodal transport allows us to build an efficient logistics, guarantee delivery and reduce its time, make consumer transportation costs predictable. The creation of a digital transport corridor involves the use of modern software and hardware systems that provide continuous monitoring of cargo flows, a mechanism for electronic interaction between customers, logistics companies and state control bodies, and the organization of data exchange in the volumes necessary for the implementation of business processes by system participants. The idea of the ​​creation of digital transport corridors is designed to provide a mechanism to simplify the organization of multimodal transportation of goods. I am sure that the combination of our efforts will give a good impetus to the development of transit traffic in the TRACECA region,” Vladyslav Kryklii said.

The Minister confirmed Ukraine’s readiness to develop cooperation within the framework of the TRACECA program and make maximum efforts to implement the Baku Declaration, whose goals are fully consistent with the Ukraine’s priorities.