This announcement was made by the European Commissioner for Trade, Valdis Dombrovskis, during the opening of the two-day Global Gateway transport investment forum in Brussels, which focuses on transportation connectivity between the European Union (EU) and Central Asia, as reported by TASS.
Dombrovskis stated, “The 11,000-kilometer-long transportation corridor is intended to link our regions with a travel time of 15 days or less. We must make this corridor competitive. Therefore, the European Commission and the European Investment Bank intend to invest 1.5 billion euros in the transportation capabilities of Central Asia.”
Valdis Dombrovskis also announced that European and international financial institutions participating in the forum would allocate a total of 10 billion euros to support and invest in sustainable transportation connectivity in Central Asia.
The organizers of the forum emphasized the need to transform the Trans-Caspian transportation corridor into a modern, multimodal, and efficient route, connecting Europe and Central Asia within a 15-day timeframe.
The Trans-Caspian International Transportation Route (TMTM) was established in 2017. It spans through China, Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and onward to Turkey and European countries. Container transportation is conducted along this route, utilizing both rail and sea transport through the Caspian Sea. The corridor has a capacity of handling up to 10 million tons of cargo annually, including up to 200,000 containers.
