Page 56 - IRANRptAug22

Tehran, Nur-Sultan move to direct rail cargo on to Kazakhstan-Iran-Eur ope route to avoid Russia
Iran, Afghanistan ‘ambitious to connect Khaf-Herat railway to China via Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan
when it comes to trade with India and other points east.
The Russian freight train is reportedly pulling 39 containers with building materials for India. It departed from Chekhov station in the Moscow region before covering 3,800 kilometres to reach Sarakhs.
Iranian Minister of Roads and Urban Development Rostam Qassemi said the locomotive would move on to the port of Shahid-Rajei in the province of Hormozgan in southern Iran. From there, the containers with cargo will go to India by sea.
"Thanks to good agreements and contracts concluded with countries such as Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, as well as the availability of this route for the delivery of Russian goods to countries such as India, the train will continue to travel along this route," Qassemi said.
INSTC backers point to how the corridor offers shorter routes than alternatives that go via the Suez Canal.
Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) has assigned 300 containers to transport goods on the Russia-India-via-Iran route, Mehr News Agency reported on July 11.
The need to avoid Russia is an increasingly common objective found on the agendas of road and rail cargo operators and it was a somewhat unspoken but big topic as the railway chiefs of Iran and Kazakhstan on May 23 signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on expanding rail cooperation and establishing preferential tariffs between their two countries. Since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in late February, triggering an economic response from the West that means Russia—rather than Iran—is now the world’s most sanctioned country, cargo hauliers have sought to avoid Russian territory. For many sending goods from East to West, sending consignments along the China-Kazakhstan-Iran-Europe (Turkey) rail route instead of the China-Russia-Europe rail route is now the better option. That was part of the background to the signing of the MoU.
Geopolitical realignments also mean Iran is seeing a surge of European goods transiting the country to reach the sole Iranian oceanic port, Chabahar, which provides access to the Indian Ocean, and other Iranian ports, located along the Persian Gulf.
Iran and Afghanistan have plans to connect the emerging Khaf (Iran)-Herat (Afghanistan) railway to China, Iranian press have reported Iran’s Deputy Transport and Urban Development Minister Abbas Khatibi as stating.
Though project approval has not yet been obtained from either Tehran or Kabul, officials envisage delivering Iran-Afghanistan-China rail connectivity via
56 IRAN Country Report August 2022 www.intellinews.com