The Federation of Freight Forwarders’ Association of India (FFFAI) will soon carry out a dry run on the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) through Nhava Sheva (Mumbai) – Bandar Abbas (Iran) – Tehran-Bandar Anzali (Iran) – Astrakhan (Russia) and submit a report to the Ministry of Commerce, which is monitoring the progress of INSTC. INSCTC is a multi-nation and multi-modal transport corridor which is aimed at reducing cargo transportation time and transactions cost between India and Central Asia and Russia. Completion of the corridor will increase trade opportunities for India Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) manifold.
At a recent meeting in Mumbai with Ravi Capoor, joint secretary and the head of CIS desk at the ministry of commerce FFFAI committed to complete the study and submit the report within a month. As part of the dry run two containers will be transported from Nhava Sheva on two different routes to study and recommend the most convenient and economical of the two routes. While the first will move from Nhava Nhava Sheva to Bandar Abbas by sea and from Bandar Abbas to Baku by road; the second container’s route will be from Nhava Sheva to Bandar Abbas by sea and from Bandar Abbas to Bandar Anzali or Amirabad by rail and further transshipped to Astrakhan or Olya through Caspian Sea.
Speaking at the occasion, Capoor said that since the disintegration of USSR, India’s trade with that region has been dismal and according to
him this disintegration happened at a time when the Indian economy was opening up and Indian trade and business communities looked at Europe and Americas as the most lucrative markets. “The volume of trade with the erstwhile USSR moved towards the west, since many countries of the broken USSR became land locked countries and trading with these countries became difficult. From 1991 to 2001 out of 15 countries 12 countries were formed as CIS countries namely, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, Armenia, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova,” said Capoor.
According to him there are four emerging markets in the world and they are Asean, Latin America, Africa and CIS countries. “Indian companies are trading with countries from the first three regions but trade with CIS countries is not substantial. There is tremendous trade opportunity with CIS countries for the Indian exporter and importers. Custom brokers, freight forwarders, shipping lines can gain from development of INSTC route as a lot of bulk cargo can be imported from these CIS countries and finished products can be exported, as these countries do not locally manufacture most of their requirements,” he informed.