The World Bank considers the development of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR, or Middle Corridor) one of the most important directions in the issue of connectivity of Central Asia.
As Day.Az reports, the coordinator of regional projects of the regional office of the World Bank in Central Asia, Dmitry Petrin, told Trend about this after a session of the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) in Almaty.
“The World Bank considers the development of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route to be one of the most important and priority areas in the issue of connectivity of Central Asia and other regions. We have conducted a study on the economic potential of this route and plan to further detail and expand the economic analysis of the potential and volume of trade in 2025. Of course, we are ready to support this activity together with other international organizations if the countries of the region make such a decision,” Petrin said.
According to him, the study shows that the effectiveness and economic attractiveness of the TMTM increases significantly if it is considered not as a purely transit route from China to Europe, but as a way to strengthen cooperation between the countries of Central Asia in the broad sense of the word – first of all, between the region South Caucasus and Central Asia, and between Turkey and Central Asia, and moreover, within Central Asia itself.
“From our point of view, this route should be considered not as a transit, but as an integration project. And in this sense, in our opinion, coordination of the countries of Central Asia is of fundamental importance in order to jointly and jointly determine the most economically beneficial and economically feasible routes transport arteries, which are now being discussed so that they do not compete with each other, but complement each other,” Petrin said.