At the emergency Summit of the Turkish Council held by video conference on the initiative of President Ilham Aliyev, the head of state noted that during the pandemic, Azerbaijan took a responsible approach to its role as a reliable transit and logistics center between Turkey and Central Asia and took additional measures to transport transit cargo. One of such measures is the launch of a feeder between the port of Baku and the port of Turkmenbashi within the framework of cooperation between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. Thus, in order to ensure the uninterrupted transportation of freight from Turkey to Central Asia, an agreement was signed today in the Port of Baku. The cargo in the trucks was loaded into containers and further placed on the feeder. The “Balkan” feeder will deliver a total of 62 containers (20, 40 and 45 feet) to the port of Turkmenbashi. The operator of the transportation is ADY Container LLC, a subsidiary of Azerbaijan Railways. Director of ADY Container, Natig Jafarov informed that the Balkan ship, designed for freight transportation through Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, will operate once a week. If the volume of cargo increases, the ship will be used twice a week. Along with ADY Container, the process is supported by Baku International Sea Trade Port CJSC and the Turkmenistan Transport-Logistics Center.
Jafarov added that in the next stage, container trains from Istanbul as well as from the port of Mersin in Turkey will be brought to the Baku Port and loaded on ships to be transported to Central Asia. The director commented on the possibility of a feeder-type Balkan ship to operate also in the post-coronavirus period: “The use of the feeder so far is a measure taken to reduce the negative impact of the pandemic on the freight delivery area. As long as the containerization process continues, the use of the ship will be a permanent service,” he said.
