Page 58 - Azerbaijan State University of Economics

THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SCIENCES: THEORY AND PRACTICE, V.72, # 1, 2015, pp. 50-60

dry ports of international importance earmarked for development in Azerbaijan equals

to 21. Baku – Istanbul corridor with possible extension into southern Europe will be of

benefit to LLDCs in the Caucasus region with the completion and commissioning in

2015 of the Kars – Akhalkalaki section between Turkey and Georgia. On the western

side of the Caspian Sea, the railways of the Islamic Republic of Iran have been working

for a number of years on completing the 372-km Qazvin-Rasht-Astara link. As of June

2012, 75% of the 205 km section between Qazvin and Rasht had been completed, while

work had started on the 167 km section from Rasht to Astara at the border with

Azerbaijan. The construction of this line section will eventually complete a North-South

international corridor along the western side of the Caspian Sea, which is being

promoted by a tripartite joint venture of the Azerbaijan, Iranian and Russian railways.

Access to sea ports for Azerbaijan is also be improved with the completion of the 105-

km line section between Kars (Turkey) and Akhalkalaki (Georgia) that will provide

Azerbaijan with access to Turkey‘s Mediterranean ports of Iskenderun and Mersin, and

to the Aegean port of Izmir. The project, which will enable continuation of container

block-train services from China, will eventually offer a new route from Asia to Eastern

and Southern Europe when the Marmaray project of an undersea tube tunnel through the

Bosphorus Straits is fully commissioned.

According to the UNESCAP report [The development economics of

landlockedness: understanding the development costs of being landlocked, 2013;

page: 65], Azerbaijan‘s development cost of being landlocked equals to 11.24%.

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