Thursday, December 2 2021 13:39

ArmInfo.Analysts at the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) have no assessment of the economic benefits that Armenia will receive from unblocking regional  transport corridors.

Thus, on December 2, on the sidelines of the Second Eurasian  Congress, in a conversation with journalists, chief economist of the  EDB and EFDS Evgeny Vinokurov asked if analysts had any assessments  regarding the benefits that Armenia could get from unblocking  communications, including in the context of the international  transport corridor North South, in particular, said: "We do not have  such assessments. In our work on the International North-South  Transport Corridor (INSTC), we investigated exactly the North- South  INSTC, and its western branch goes through Russia to Azerbaijan and  Iran.

To clarify how Armenia can participate in the project, the analyst  stated that there are several ideas.  According to him, one of them  is that the construction of the North-South road corridor will create  the potential for transportation along the Iran-Armenia-Georgia axis  through ports to the European course, or in the case of an  improvement in relations between Russia and Georgia, Iran-Armenia and  across the Georgian military road to Russia.

"That is, these two ideas are being discussed," he said, while  agreeing that the main routes pass through Azerbaijan.

At the same time, he stated that it is believed that landlocked  countries are losing up to 1.5% of GDP and up to 30% of their  potential trade due to poor logistics.

Answering the question about China's declining interest in the  North-South project, Vinokurov noted that the PRC has really stopped  prioritizing the One Belt - One Road, as it was in the 2010s.   However, according to him, all confirmed investments are being made -  this is the first moment.  "The second point, the PRC has not  invested a penny, nor a cent, nor a yuan in container transportation  along the axis " China-EAEU-EU-EAEU-China ". This is all done at the  expense of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus. Our national railways are  upgrading their networks and so on. But, since 2013, China has  subsidized containerized exports from its central provinces.  Subsidies are large. According to our calculations, they  approximately zeroise the cost of transit of containers from their  central provinces to the western border, that is, to the state union.  This is about 30% of the total cost of transportation, "the analyst  said, adding that this subsidy gave a powerful boost to container  transport in 2013, which continues to this day.  According to him,  that is, China has invested in transportation along the "West-East",  and not through investments, but through subsidies.

"The same is the case for North-South. This is more ours than  Chinese. The axis goes Helsinki-Moscow- Astrakhan, then splits into  three branches and converges in Iran and goes the Middle  East-Pakistan- Mumbai. That is, this is a case that will most likely  have to be solved without Chinese money, anyway.  And there is  already infrastructure there - let's say the Kazakhstan -Turkmenistan  -Iran railway, it works, and ferries from Astrakhan to Iran carry up  to 5 million tons of grain per year. The question now is to finish  building the infrastructure. We are talking about the Rasht-Astara  railway between Azerbaijan and Iran, and to achieve high-quality  interstate agreements, that is, through tariffs, convenient for  senders, as well as to ensure that railways and roads are fully  engaged with each other, "he said.  As an example, Vinokurov  mentioned the testing of a train on the Helsinki-Mumbai route, which  passed this route in test mode in 12 days. "If everything is adjusted  at the intergovernmental level, then cargo from Northern Europe to  India will pass in 15 days. This is absolutely real, "he concluded.