TAPI and TAT projects hailed as a part of transport transit drive in region
On 7 August, New Delhi hosted the 8th meeting of Regional Technical Group on Trade, Commerce and Investment Opportunities Confident Building Measures (CBM) under the Istanbul Process “Heart of Asia”, says press release of Ministry of External Affairs of India. The meeting, co-chaired by high officials of Afghani and Indian foreign ministries, was attended by delegations from Azerbaijan, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, UAE, Australia, Egypt, Germany, UK, USA, EU and UN. The delegates have hailed the steps taken for further realization of Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project (TAPI), Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan (TAT) railway corridor and Afghanistan-Turkmenistan-Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey transport-transit corridor, serving a key factor in bringing overall stability and growth to Afghanistan and entire region. Focusing on growing significance of connectivity integration initiatives, the sides have featured also transit and transport opportunities through Iranian Chahbahar Port and electricity transmission project CASA-1000. The participants exchanged opinions on various measures, to be taken in order to encourage trade partnership and ensuring sustained linkage through Afghanistan as a hub. In this context, they recognized the need to expand the existing transit and trade legal framework both northwards and southwards to connect South Asia with Central Asia. Indian side proposed to create a web-portal, aimed at sharing information on regional markets, commercial and investment opportunities in participating countries.
