According to the Kazakhstan Railways website, the three railway operators from Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kazakhstan have established a new joint entity that will be in charge of the development of the Transcaspian International Transport Route (TITR) and multi-modal service along the way.
The new company Middle Corridor Multimodal Ltd. is going to operate within the Astana International Financial Center.
«Within these joint efforts, the company will provide services as a single-window system, ensure delivery time and conduct the same policy on the development of the multi-modal service all the way through from China to Europe and from Turkey to China,» Kazakhstan Railways said in a statement.”
The TITR may become the key project for the Turkic Investment Fund that has just recently been established. The creation of the fund was initiated by the Organization of Turkic States this spring. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed this document on behalf of Kazakhstan in the middle of October.
The five states are going to take part in the fund’s work: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey and Uzbekistan. Each member state is supposed to make a contribution to the fund’s charter capital of $100 million within several years. Kazakhstan is expected to pay $5 million next year.
According to Abzal Abdikarimov, deputy minister of national economy, the initiative isn’t just another fund, but an unprecedented agreement. The fund is expected to focus on infrastructural projects where several member states are involved. Even though there is no final list of projects determined by the partners yet, the TITR or the Middle Corridor that stretches from China to Turkey through Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan and Georgia, is likely to be the first such project financially supported by the fund.
