Trans-Caucasus: Making a transit corridor an economic engine
Major shipping route linking Azerbaijan and Georgia with Europe and China has a plan to rival competing trade corridors.
The challenge
How to turn the Trans-Caucasus Transit Corridor (CTC) into a reliable and competitive trading route linking Europe and China? By patching up its freight and logistics performance issues, of course.
Recognizing that CPCS has deep expertise in this area, the World Bank requested a solution to improve this multimodal transportation infrastructure.
“The endgame is to make the Trans-Caucasus Transit Corridor an equally desirable alternative to maritime routes,” says Vivek Sakhrani, transportation expert at CPCS.
What we did
CPCS took the following steps to prescribe improvements for the CTC:
- Survey the conditions and characteristics of the CTC
- Analyze freight and commodity flows
- Assess physical and non-physical barriers
- Benchmark CTC performance against competing trade corridors
“This led us to craft a data-driven strategy and action plan,” says Vivek. “Our study lays out the short, medium and long-term wins and details the expected outcomes for the Corridor.”
Impact
Reduced transit times and greater reliability is likely to increase transit containers from China to Europe from 350 to 60,000 per year. This in turn will drive economic growth in both Azerbaijan and Georgia.
