The International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC), a multi-modal corridor running from St. Petersburg, Russia to Mumbai, India via the Caspian Sea and Iran, is moving ahead at full speed. That was described at the North-South International Forum, which took place on Oct. 25-26 in Astrakhan, Russia’s main Caspian Sea port. More than 150 companies from Iran, Pakistan, Oman, U.A.E., India, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Iraq, and others attended the event which was sponsored by the Astrakhan Region, RusIranExpo group of companies and the Caspian “North-South” International Integration Club.
Addressing the forum, Dariush Jamali, the Iranian director of the Russian Port of Solyanka, called the corridor “a key element of the Eurasian transport network” and that Russia and Iran are prepared to invest up to $38 billion for its development.
The conference revealed the close cooperation among Russia, Iran and India. Iran has leased the Russian Solyanka Port near where the Volga comes into the Caspian Sea, and is transforming it into its strategic base on the INSTC for trade with Russia, as the only foreign nation allowed to navigate Russia’s inland waterways, including the Don Volga Canal, giving Iran access to both the Black Sea and the Baltic.
Dmitry Dubovik, director of the Caspian International North-South Integration Club also announced at the conference that the Indian Navy’s Goa Shipyard will be building 24 ships based on Russian models; these include chemical, bulk cargo and container ships to deploy on the Caspian. These are presumably river-sea class ships capable of navigating on Russia’s inland waterways. They are being built in India, where they will cost half the price of Russia’s. The ships will be operated by the Russian-registered subsidiary of the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, an Iranian state-owned corporation.
Significantly, the CEO of Afghanistan’s Railway Authority Bakht Rahman Sharafat led a delegation to the event, where they met with Dubovik and
discussed investment in Afghanistan’s Trans-Afghan Railway, he reported. Dubovik explained that Russia is one of the founders of the Trans-Afghan Railway, which project is of special value to Russia.
The director of Iraqi railways also attended the Astrakhan event. Earlier this year Iraq and Iran announced construction of a railway linking their railway networks, which would give Iraq access to the INSTC.
