A new service has been launched to develop the eastern branch of the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC): KTZ Express, a multimodal subsidiary of the Kazakhstan National Railway Company KTZ, transports sesame seeds from India to Kazakhstan via Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

The goods will be moved from the Mundra port in western India to Almaty in southeastern Kazakhstan. As stated in KTZ, this service is part of the development plan of the Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran railway corridor. This corridor is part of the INSTC eastern branch connecting Mumbai with Moscow.

According to KTZ, the estimated travel time for this trip is about 20 days. First, the goods will travel by sea from the port of Mundra to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. From now on, the containers will be transported by rail and sent to Almaty via Iran, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Many players participating in INSTC insist on the development of the eastern branch of the corridor. For example, in December 2022, Russian Railways established a 20 percent discount for operators who decided to transport goods on the eastern side of INSTC. The discount is granted only to containers transported through Russian-Kazakh border crossings, as well as through the Bolashak-Serkhetyak border crossing between Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

The eastern branch of INSTC refers to the network connecting Russia with the countries of the Caspian Basin, the Persian Gulf, Central, South and Southeast Asia.

ORIENT news