A total of 430,000 tons of commodities were transited from Sarakhs rail border in Khorasan Razavi Province to the neighboring Turkmenistan during the first 11 months of the current Iranian year (March 20, 2020-Feb. 18), registering a 9% increase compared with the similar period of last year.
“These consignments were transited by 10,000 wagons, which were mostly headed from Central Asian countries to Iran’s Bandar Abbas,” director general of Khorasan Railways, Mostafa Nasiri Varag, was quoted as saying by IRNA.
The main transit goods, he added, were sulfur and containers.
Some 1,400 kilometers of Iran’s 10,000 km of railroads are located in Khorasan Razavi Province in Iran’s northeast.
Last year, Roads and Urban Development Minister Mohammad Eslami and his Turkmen counterpart Gandymov Rahim Nurgeldiyevich jointly inaugurated Sarakhs Transit Bridge.
The construction of this 96-meter-long, 15-meter-wide transit bridge, which connects Turkmenistan’s Sarakhs to Iran’s Sarakhs on the Tajan River started in the year ending March 2016 as per an agreement signed in Tehran on Nov. 22, 2015, in a ceremony attended by President Hassan Rouhani and Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow.
According to Eslami, the new bridge facilitates the movement of 1,000 vehicles per day.
“The two-way bridge would play a key role in improving trade between Tehran and Ashgabat while it would also pave the way for the implementation of the Ashgabat Agreement and help Iran expand its economic ties with countries in the Central Asia region,” he was quoted as saying by Fars News Agency.
Iran and Turkmenistan are members of Ashgabat Agreement — a multimodal transport agreement signed in 2011, which envisages the facilitation of transit and transportation of goods between Central Asia and Persian Gulf.
Latest data show Iran’s commercial exchanges with Turkmenistan stood at 753,985 tons worth $409.78 million in the fiscal 2018-19 to register a 17.58% and 5.04% decline in tonnage and value respectively compared to the year before.
Iran exported 735,880 tons of goods worth $400.48 million to Turkmenistan, down 16.56% and 4.3% in tonnage and value respectively year-on-year.
Iran’s exports to Turkmenistan mainly included potato, sugar, steel structures, apple, pipe and profiles, livestock and poultry feed.
The country imported 18,105 tons of commodities worth $9.29 billion from Turkmenistan, down by 45.09% and 28.77% in tonnage and value respectively YOY, which mainly constituted oilcake, cotton linter, mineral oil, textile, sesame and beans.
Rail routes between Iran, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan opened for trade as of June 1 after they were closed due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
Iranian Ambassador to Turkmenistan Gholam-Abbas Arbab-Khales in an interview with IRNA said diplomatic and political talks are underway with the two countries daily for reopening joint borders with the aim of resuming trade and transit with Turkmenistan and other countries in the region.
“These talks have been held by the Iranian Embassy and Foreign Ministry for reopening joint borders among Iran, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, especially in the last few weeks,” he added.
A trilateral meeting was held between CEOs of rail companies of the three countries through videoconference.
“The trilateral talks were held in the presence of ministers of roads and urban development of Iran, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan regarding transit cooperation and reopening of borders, including Incheh Borun, Sarakhs and Lotfabad,” Arbab-Khales said.
In this meeting, chief executives of the rail companies of Iran, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan agreed to reopen rail routes as of June 1 by installing disinfecting tunnels on their borders and by observing health protocols and guidelines, he added.
“We agreed to have joint protocols for controlling coronavirus in order to resume trilateral exchanges,” Iran's Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mohammad Eslami said at the time.
The official said a series of 20-meter-long tunnels for this purpose will be built within the next 10 days on the border between the two neighbors to allow trade to resume after nearly two months of border closure.
He added that Iran and Turkmenistan signed a memorandum of understanding to share transportation information electronically.
The minister said Uzbekistan was also invited to join the mechanism to further ease goods transit from Iran to Uzbekistan via Turkmenistan.
Eslami said Uzbekistan also agreed to remove border restrictions for a number of Iranian trucks stranded in the country due to a ban on crossing into Turkmenistan.
Deputy Foreign Minister Gholamreza Ansari said on April 27 that all borders of Iran, except the one with Turkmenistan, were open (albeit with restrictions).
Ansari noted that Turkmenistan closed its borders to all countries, both neighbors and non-neighbors, due to the coronavirus outbreak.
