The Trans-Caspian Transport Corridor, also known as the Middle Corridor, stretches over 10,000 km, linking East Asia, Central Asia, the South Caucasus, Türkiye, and Europe. Despite its high operational complexity (on average, 4–5 border crossings, 2 rail gauge changes, and up to 10 customs procedures), the Corridor has the potential to evolve from a fragmented route into a highly integrated and operationally seamless logistics system.
According to the authors, the Middle Corridor’s significance rests on two pillars. First, it offers the opportunity to diversify Eurasia’s transport routes complementing the established corridors. Second, it provides a development stimulus for the countries of the region, including attracting investment, improving access to markets, accelerating technological innovation, and enhancing transport connectivity.
To seize these opportunities, countries along the route need to address a range of barriers, including infrastructure constraints, regulatory divergences, and low levels of operational connectivity. From this perspective, the Corridor breaks down into three segments: the Eastern Gate — the Central Asian countries, primarily Kazakhstan; the Caspian Transshipment Hub — a key element connecting the two subregions; and the Western Gate — the South Caucasus and Türkiye.
The key findings of the study include the following.
1. If development barriers are overcome, the Trans-Caspian Transport Corridor can boost the GDP of participating countries by 3.3% and increase employment by 2.9%. This growth would be driven primarily by a 1.5-fold increase in mutual trade among countries along the route in value terms and a 60% increase in physical terms by 2040. This will require expanding trade in high-margin goods, since freight along the route is currently dominated by bulk cargo.
2. Infrastructure upgrading remains a key challenge for the Corridor’s development, which will require investments of USD 25 billion through 2040, primarily in railway construction. Key projects include:
• A rail crossing over the Bosphorus (USD 8.2 billion in investment).
• The Uzbekistan—Kyrgyzstan—China line (USD 4.7 billion).
• A rail link between Azerbaijan and Türkiye via southern Armenia (USD 2.7 billion).
• Reconstruction of the Divriği—Kars—Georgia line (USD 1.6 billion).
• A rail spur from Moyynty to Kyrgyzstan (USD 1.4 billion).
• The Bakhty—Ayagoz rail spur with a border crossing point (USD 1.2 billion).
• The Anaklia port in Georgia (USD 1.2 billion) and the expansion of the Baku port (USD 500 million).
In addition, at least USD 30 billion will be required to develop supporting infrastructure including terminals, rolling stock, warehouses, and digital systems.
3. To mobilize financing, the authors propose attracting private investment and developing public-private partnerships. At the same time, the full implementation of this scenario is impossible without structural reforms in the transport sector aimed at harmonizing regulatory approaches of the participating countries (tariff policy, transparency, and limiting excessive state involvement).
4. The overland route through the Trans-Caspian Transport Corridor can offer competitive advantages over maritime transport in terms of delivery times (18–19 days vs 45–50 days). However, as the authors conclude, becoming a fully fledged alternative will require regulatory harmonization of transport, transit, and trade and cargo documentation, since today transporting a shipment requires concluding at least five carriage contracts and obtaining two bills of lading for sea carriage.
The report’s authors see the development of the Turkish segment as promising, should the transit situation through Armenia be resolved, which could result in 62% of the Сorridor’s containerized cargo flows being oriented toward Türkiye, with reduced delivery times.
For more details, see the full version of the study.
