EBRD offers C.Asia billions of euros for cargo routes bypassing Russia

The Middle Corridor is slower and more expensive than the Northern route, but most importantly, it lacks the capacity to handle large cargo volumes. "Currently, the Middle Corridor, also called the Transcaspian Route, can handle only 5% of the EU – China railway transit container traffic," EBRD President Odile Renaud-Basso told a conference in the Uzbek city of Samarkand.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is ready to invest billions of euros in the development of cargo routes between Europe and Asia that bypass Russia, its president told Central Asian nations on Friday. The lion's share of railway traffic between China and Europe goes via the so-called Northern route through Russia, but Western sanctions against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine have forced businesses to look for alternative routes.

The EBRD is a major backer of what it calls the Middle Corridor, a route crossing Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. The Middle Corridor is slower and more expensive than the Northern route, but most importantly, it lacks the capacity to handle large cargo volumes.

"Currently, the Middle Corridor, also called the Transcaspian Route, can handle only 5% of the EU – China railway transit container traffic," EBRD President Odile Renaud-Basso told a conference in the Uzbek city of Samarkand. "Recent world developments have increased interest in the Middle Corridor. We already observe how more customers and operators are exploring route diversification."

The EBRD is ready, she said, to support large-scale projects in the formerly Soviet region of Central Asia to address existing bottlenecks, facilitate cargo flows on the Middle Corridor and explore the feasibility of other routes. "We recognise (other routes') strategic importance and potential advantages from the point of view of logistics. But we shall be also analysing the political, commercial and fiscal risks the development of these new transport corridors entail," she said.

"It will be important to take such risks into account when prioritising and advancing such multi-billion euro potential investments." Theoretical alternatives allowed by existing railway and sea links include shipments, for example, from Kazakhstan to Iran with its Gulf ports.

The EBRD is already investing and working with Kazakhstan to boost the capacity of its railways and the port of Aktau, and the Caspian fleet, key parts of the Middle Corridor. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who also spoke at the conference, said that Brussels was promoting connectivity with Central Asia "not at the expense of other connections".

"We respect and endorse the desire of the Central Asian partners to reject dependency on any single international partner regardless of conditions of history and geography," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)