Land Transport Corridors Between Central Asia And Europe

In view of the great potential of trade development between Europe & Central Asia, this publication addresses the demand that would be placed on the existing transport & communications infrastructure. It provides a focus on three transport corridors - between Northern Europe & the republics of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan & Uzbekistan. Along with this focus, it presents an assessment of the traffic that could potentially be moved in containers in the next few years; reviews related policies of the international organizations involved in the development of transport linkages; gives a description of the rail & road routes; & addresses the issue of route standards & requirements. It also presents recommendations to help in the development of reliable & efficient container land transport.

This report includes recommendations and a plan of action approved by ministers and a report on Trends in Europe-Asia Trade and Consequences for Transport. It also includes contributions from the UNECE and the IRU.

The Modern Silk Route is offering a potential land-bridge between China and Europe through Central Asia and Russia that offers a complement to existing shipping routes, and is attracting growing interest by a selected number of multinational companies. However, the main role of the Silk Route is to support the development and integration of the region. Connectivity to the east and west, over exceptionally long distances, is critical to the development of the Central Asian countries, when trading globally and between themselves. Facilitating trade and transportation across many borders, remains a major challenge more than twenty years since the breakup of the former Soviet Union.The book revisits trade and transport connectivity through the Central Asia countries along the old Silk Route, based on knowledge from project implementation and field research. It takes the modern perspective of supply chain efficiency and logistics performance, which depends not only on infrastructure but also markets and policies. Since the breakup of the Former Soviet Union connectivity of Central Asia is a prominent agenda. The focus has been on physical improvements of specific transport corridors. But logistics performance remains very low, caused by inefficiencies, at national levels, of services and of trade and transport agencies, as well as lack of cross-border integration of trade and transit.The book suggests that the policy focus should not be just on physical trade routes. Rather, it stresses the focus on supply chain reliability, and proposes policy packages and enabling implementation practices, consistent across countries in the region in areas such as transportation, customs and border clearance, trade or transit. It also highlights the complementarity of the current initiatives, including the recent development of the Eurasian Customs Union, or the rising of trade and investment from China.

Based on new analytical research and case studies, the authors provide insights on what works and does not work, and they offer policy recommendations to address these issues.

The Modern Silk Route is critical to the development and integration of Central Asian countries. The book argues that to overcome current supply chain inefficiencies the traditional focus on physical corridors needs to be complemented by a consistent and ambitious set of national reforms in trade and transport facilitation.

The WEB of Transport Corridors in South Asia develops a holistic appraisal methodology to ensure that economic benefits of investments in transport corridors are amplified and more widely spread, and possible negative impacts such as congestion, environmental degradation, and other unintended consequences are minimized. It focuses on South Asia—not only as one of the world’s most populous and poorest regions—but as a hinge between East Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. The book is aimed at politicians, technocrats, civil society organizations, and businesses. It presents case studies of past and recent corridor initiatives, provides rigorous analysis of the literature on the spatial impact of corridors, and offers assessments of corridor investment projects supported by international development organizations. A series of spotlights examines such issues as private sector co-investment; the impacts of corridors on small enterprises and women; and issues with implementing cross-border corridors. The 'WEB' in the title stands for both the wider economic benefits (WEB) that transport corridors are expected to generate and the complex web of transport corridors that has been proposed. The appraisal methodology introduced in this book shows how the web of interconnected elements around corridors can be disentangled and the most promising corridor proposals—the ones with the greatest wider economic benefits—can be selected.

This book looks at the most recent transport and investment trends. It then examines the pan-European process of legal harmonisation and adjustment of transport systems and analyses emerging trade and transport links between Europe and Asia.