Iran’s Minister of Road and Urban Development Rostam Qasemi said that Kyrgyzstan can serve as Iran’s transit corridor to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization region.
Qasemi made the remarks during a meeting in Tehran with Kyrgyzstan’s Economy and Commerce Minister Daniyar Amangeldiev.
Referring to the high capacity for transit cooperation between Iran and Kyrgyzstan, the Iranian minister said that there is the possibility of railway transit of commodities from the southern Iranian port of Bandar Abbas to Kyrgyzstan.
He called for implementation of the already signed agreements between Iran and Turkmenistan and other Central Asian countries to tap into the capacity.
Noting that road transit can also be put on the agenda of both countries, Qasemi also said that regular flights are operating between Iranian northeastern city of Mashhad and Kyrgyzstan’s capital city of Bishkek.
He called for the number of flights between the two countries to increase.
The Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan-Afghanistan-Iran (KTAI) corridor was launched in July 2020 following the first successful transport operation from Shahid Rajaee Port in southern Iran to Kyrgyzstan under the TIR convention.
According to World Bank reports, the total population of the four countries along the corridor stands at 128 million people and their combined total GDP equals close to half a trillion dollars. The launch of KTAI corridor is designed to tap into these growing markets.