Cargo delivery time from China to Turkey reduced to 15 days

The delivery time for China-Europe freight trains from China to Turkey via the Middle Corridor route has been reduced to 15 days. This was announced by Turkish Deputy Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Enver Iskurt, Trend reports.

He made this statement at the ceremony of the departure of two freight trains from Istanbul to Lodz, Poland, and Budapest, Hungary, which had previously arrived in Istanbul from China.

For example, one of the trains departed from the Chinese city of Chengdu and transported 508 tons of cargo via the Middle Corridor route in Xinjiang, via the Alatavi Pass, to the Turkish city of Kars. However, due to bad weather and lengthy customs procedures on the Caspian Sea, the transportation took more than 20 days.

“Reducing the delivery time to 15 days is an important development for China, Turkey and Europe,” the deputy minister said.

According to Enver Iskurt, the next goal is to reduce the travel time from Alatavi to Kars to 10 days.

In 2015, Turkey and China signed a memorandum of understanding, according to which the Middle Corridor project would be coordinated with China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative. The Middle Corridor is a multimodal route that connects China with Europe via Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. In particular, trains from China will travel to Kazakhstan and the Caspian Sea, then transship in Azerbaijan and then through Georgia and Turkey to deliver goods to European countries. The route will be implemented in a multimodal scheme, “rail-sea-rail”.

In 2015, after the signing of the Memorandum of Cooperation between China and Turkey, the route has been actively developing.

For your information, this month the 20,000th freight train passed from China to Europe along the Middle Corridor route. Transportation from China along the Middle Corridor began in 2013, and in 2022 the 10,000th train passed along the route. Thus, this figure has doubled in the last three years, which indicates the growing popularity of the route.

From July 1 to 10 of this year, two such trains passed from China in a row along the Middle Corridor.

Info: bpn.ge