The first container train sent from Helsinki (Finland) to the Indian port of Nava Sheva arrived in Iran via Astara border, IRIB News reported on Wednesday.
“The consignment, which arrived in Astara today, contains 563 tons of paper worth €535,000 carried by 32 cars. The customs formalities in the foreign transit procedure were completed in the shortest time possible so that the goods can be transported to Rasht by trucks,” Director General of Astara Customs Terminal Karim Rasouli was quoted as saying by IRNA.
The port city of Astara borders Azerbaijan Republic.
Rasht is the largest city on Iran's Caspian Sea coast. It is the capital of Gilan Province.
The train of 32 40-foot containers will deliver a cargo of paper products to India.
The operators of this project are Russia’s JSC Russian Railways Logistics, ADY Container LLC of Azerbaijan and Iran’s Tarkib Trans Company.
This project is a pilot project implemented as a result of close cooperation between rail operators of the countries participating in the International North-South Transport Corridor. Depending on the results of the current pilot project, block trains will move regularly along the corridor.
The INSTC project was launched in 2002, when the transport ministers of Russia, Iran and India signed an agreement to establish a 7,200-kilometer multimodal ship, rail and road-based transport network.
Starting from Mumbai, it would head to Moscow via Iran and the Caspian Sea.
According to Business Insider, containers are offloaded here and shipped along the Caspian to its Russian shore at Astrakhan, which becomes the base of further transportation into Eurasia.
Over time, other countries are being networked in this rapidly expanding corridor, including Azerbaijan and Armenia, in tune with the rise of Eurasia in the 21st century.
The second corridor, or the Chabahar route, also begins at Mumbai, though Gujarat's upstart Mundra Port is now acquiring greater resonance. From India's west coast, the corridor heads to Chabahar, Iran's only Indian Ocean port, which is still a work-in-progress with a vast potential.
From Chabahar, in which India is pitching major investment, the route heads toward Afghanistan via Iran's Sistan-Baluchistan Province, along a recent India-built road. Over time, a railroad is also envisaged, which will link Chabahar with the Hajigak iron ore mines in Afghanistan, where India has made major investments.
Planners of INSTC now want to link the two routes into a giant undertaking that will allow landlocked regions of Eurasia, not only to access the increasingly congested Bandar Abbas, but also the rapidly expanding Chabahar Port and route.
