USC commenced designing river-going container carriers for North-South ITC
A regular container line will start servicing the North-South ITC soon
United Shipbuilding Corporation has commenced designing container carriers for operation on inland water ways of Russia in the framework of the North-South international transport corridor (ITC), USC head Aleksey Rakhmanov said at the Eurasian Business Forum “Integration”, according to the statement of the Telegram channel of USC.
Aleksey Rakhmanov believes that integration of the EurAsEC links the Caspian economies will be more effective when the North-South ITC is fully operational. The transport corridor links the Caspian States with the North-West of Russia by IWW. USC head said the corporation had commenced designing the container carriers and promised that a regular container line would start servicing the North-South ITC soon. According to the speaker, it will take about 8 days to come from the south of the Caspian sea to Saint-Petersburg if customs issues are solved for a faster border crossing.
Sergey Lyashenko, Director of USC Technical Development Department, earlier said that such container carriers would be built by USC’s Southern Center of Shipbuilding and Ship Repair.
North-South international transport corridor (ITC) is a 7,200-kilometre-long transport artery from St Petersburg to ports in Iran and India. North-South ITC has a western and an eastern branch, both running across Iran. The western one foresees cargo transportation by road via Rasht, the eastern one – by railway. The end point in Iran is the port of Bandar Abbas from which cargo can be delivered to India by sea. The western branch also crosses Azerbaijan, the eastern one – Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Besides, direct water transportation from Russia to Iran by the Caspian Sea is possible.