(Yicai) Nov. 21 -- A subsidiary of China State Railway Group has invested in Middle Corridor Multimodal, a joint venture formed by the railway companies of Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Georgia in 2023, to jointly develop the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route.

China Railway Container Group will become a shareholder of Middle Corridor Multimodal, China Railway announced on Nov. 18. The JV integrates and coordinates different transportation resources and provides customers with freight transport services along the TITR.

The TITR, also known as the Middle Corridor, is the shortest transportation route between China and Europe. It starts in China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, crosses Kazakhstan, passes through the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan, and reaches Turkey through Georgia or other European countries through the Black Sea. It consists of 4,256 kilometers of railroads and 508 km of shipping routes.

Through rail-sea intermodal transport, the China-Europe Railway Express can extend to the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea, and countries on the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea via the TITR.

After the Russia-Ukraine conflict broke out in February 2022, the proportion of China-Europe freight train services to Europe gradually dropped to 15 percent from 45 percent due to the European Union’s ban on trains transiting through Russia. The TITR was put on the agenda last year to address this issue.

According to data from the Ministry of Transport of Kazakhstan, about 4.1 million tons of cargo were transported along the TITS in the first 11 months of last year, up 63 percent from a year earlier. Among that, container transportation surged 2.6-fold to 50,500 twenty-foot equivalent units, demonstrating the rapid development and potential of the Middle Corridor.

Editor: Futura Costaglione