Tehran to host INSTC meeting

Iran is to host the seventh coordination council and the International North-south Transit Corridor (INSTC) ministerial meeting on March 4-5 in Tehran.

“The meeting is to be hosted by Iran’s Ministry of Roads and Urban Development. Representatives of 13 member countries of INSTC have been invited,” Amin Tarafo, the head of the ministry’s Commerce Department told Trend News Agency.

The official indicated the aim of the meeting is to facilitate transportation procedures in the INSTC.

“Given that the Qazvin–rasht railway will be inaugurated concurrently with the meeting, it is a good event for both domestic and international transportation,” he said.

“The secretariat of the international corridor has been transferred to the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development to follow the activities more coherently,” Tarafo added.

He further noted that the secretariat has established a mechanism to pursue past and new agendas in cooperation with member countries.

In November, 2018, Russia decided to open a €3-billion credit line to finance the INSTC which connects India to Russia via Iran, announced Mohammad Eslami, Iran’s roads and urban development minister.

India, Russia and Iran held a trilateral meeting on the INSTC on November 23 to make the 7,200-km ship, road and rail route operational soon, an official statement announced last month.

India’s Union Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu said that the corridor is an important initiative taken by India, Russia and Iran to promote transport cooperation and to enhance connectivity with Central Asian states.

“The INSTC is the shortest multimodal transportation route linking the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf via Iran to Russia and North Europe,” the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said in the statement.

“The estimated capacity of the corridor is 20 to 30 million tons of goods per year and will reduce time and cost by 30 percent to 40 percent,” it added.