Azerbaijan establishes unified center for transit freight management

By Trend

A decision on establishing a unified headquarters for transit freight management was made at the meeting of Azerbaijan's Coordinating Council on Transit Freight, chaired by Minister of Digital Development and Transport Rashad Nabiyev, the Ministry told Trend.

The primary objective of the headquarters is to simplify and digitalize border crossing procedures, improve the synchronized planning and management of transit operations through a single dispatch. The headquarters is to monitor operations and regularly submit reports to the secretariat of the Coordinating Council. The headquarters will also provide a call center service for the prompt solution of the cargo issues.

Meanwhile, "Procedural rules for managing transit freight operations" carried out at the Baku International Sea Port have been signed. The document regulates the cargo handling processes, operation sequencing, and the timing. The meeting decided to sign similar procedural rules for other border checkpoints.

In addition, a 'Transit road map' was drawn up following studies by local and foreign experts. The map sets short-term, medium-term and long-term objectives for the full disclosure of the country's transit potential.

Furthermore, the meeting noted that transit cargo traffic in the East-West and North-West directions (excluding the pipeline) increased by 325,000 tons (15 percent) and 873,000 tons (by 205 percent), respectively, from January through June 2022 compared to the same period of 2021. The total freight volume through the mentioned directions reached 2.5 million tons and 1.3 million tons.

In the reporting period, the transportation of Turkmen oil through the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline grew by 746,000 tons (155 percent) compared to the same period of 2021 and totaled 1.2 million tons. The rail transport of oil products (particularly, of Kazakh origin) in the Yalama-Boyuk Kesik direction increased by 772,000 tons (growth of 707 percent against the same period of 2021), reaching 900,000 tons in the first half of 2022.

The meeting participants exchanged views on dynamic tariffs of rail transport to ensure the cargo flow through Azerbaijan.