TEHRAN – Russia, India and Iran will meet later this month to discuss theoperation of the 7,200-km International North-South Transport Corridor(INSTC), which is seen as “a cheaper and shorter alternative to thetraditional route through the Suez Canal,” according to the Iranian newsagency.
The International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), a multimodenetwork of sea and rail routes, will link the Indian Ocean and the PersianGulf via Iran to Russia and North Europe.
The project comes in the backdrop of China’s multi-trillion-dollar One BeltOne Road initiative. Within Iran, the two routes overlap in a potentialboon to future businesses.
New Delhi has been actively courting Tehran, given the utmost importance itattaches to the route and Iran has been receptive.
Once operational, the corridor will allow India to send its goods to BandarAbbas in Iran by sea, from where they will be transported to Iran’s BandarAnzali on the Caspian Sea by road. Next, they will be shipped to Astrakhanin Russia and transported into Europe by rail.
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The route will cut the time and cost of delivering goods by about 30percent to more than 40 percent. Compared with the Suez Canal, the corridorwill reduce the transport time between Mumbai and Moscow to about 20 days.The estimated capacity of the corridor is 20 to 30 million tonnes of goodsper year.
India’s Union Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu on Saturday meta Russian business delegation in New Delhi, where he said: “all issues maybe resolved in order to operationalize the (INSTC) route as early aspossible.”
An official statement said India, Russia and Iran will hold a trilateralmeeting on November 23 to make the route operational soon, Indian mediareported Tuesday.
