A north/south dream?

摘要

Plans are afoot to develop a north-south corridor for the intermodal movement of containers between western Asia and Europe via Russia. This alternative transport link from Asia to Europe - stretching from Mumbai in India, to the Caspian port of Olya (Astrakhan region) via Iran's Bandar Abbas and on to Europe through Russia - could be handling as much as eight million tonnes of containerised cargo by 2005. This is twice as much as last year. Countries with a shared interest in smoothing the flow of cargo through this corridor launched a multi-country co-ordination council to facilitate co-operation in 2002. Russia, Iran and India were the first three members, signing the original agreement early last year at a meeting in Mumbai, India. Belarus and Kazakhstan subsequently joined, raising the membership to five, and another six countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Bulgaria, Oman and Syria) might also get on board soon.