ASTANA, KAZAKHSTAN — Railway administrations of Georgia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan have agreed to establish a railway consortium, the Caspian and Black Sea Agrarian congress said on Feb. 24.

The consortium will provide movement of goods via the Trans-Caspian International Transport route. The route connects China with Europe via Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Georgia. It is a multimodal corridor which uses railway, maritime and road transport. By 2020, it is estimated this route will transport between 300,000-400,000 containers.

Goods will move from the sea ports of China to the port of Batumi, and then to Turkey and further to Europe, declared the first Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Bakytzhan Sagintayev on Feb. 17 after meeting with representatives of the Georgian and Kazakh government departments.

“This is a very profitable transit route for all parts, and we all are very interested in establishing such a consortium,” he said.

According to Sagintayev, Kazakhstan is not going to abandon its assets in the Batumi port and the Batumi oil terminal, since they are connected with the Trans-Caspian transit route B. Sagintayev stressed that Kazakh investors are interested in protection of their assets from any risks.