A subsidiary of China State Railway Group has invested in the Middle Corridor Multimodal joint venture, formed by railway companies from Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Georgia in 2023 to develop the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route.

On 18 November, China Railway announced that China Railway Container Group would become a shareholder of Middle Corridor Multimodal. The joint venture (JV) integrates and coordinates different transportation resources, providing customers with freight transport services along the TITR.

The TITR, also known as the Middle Corridor, is the shortest transportation route between China and Europe. Starting in China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, it crosses Kazakhstan, passes through the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan, and reaches Turkey via Georgia or other European countries via the Black Sea. The route consists of 4,256 kilometres of railways and 508 kilometres of shipping routes.

Using rail-sea intermodal transport, the China-Europe Railway Express can reach the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea and Mediterranean Sea coastal countries via the TITR.

Following the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in February 2022, the proportion of China-Europe freight train services to Europe gradually dropped from 45 percent to 15 percent due to the European Union’s ban on trains transiting through Russia. The TITR was put on the agenda last year to address this issue.

According to data from Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Transport, approximately 4.1 million tonnes of cargo were transported along the TITR in the first 11 months of last year, marking a 63 percent increase from the previous year. Of this, container transport increased sixfold to 50,500 twenty-foot equivalent units, demonstrating the Middle Corridor’s rapid development and potential.

Source: China State Railway Group