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Kolkata Oct 11

THE Commerce Ministry has urged exporters to fully utilise the international `North-South Corridor' developed through Iran, which would not only ensure cost savings but also help expansion of trade with the CIS countries.

The corridor, according to ministry officials, holds the promise of developing into a viable, cost effective, time saving alternate trade route to CIS region when fully developed.

Already operational, the route involves multi-modal transport, and includes Mumbai-bender Abbes (Iran) by ship, Bender Abbes-Bender Anzali by road/rail, Bender Anzali-Astrakhan (Russia) by ship through Caspian Sea and Astrakhan-Moscow by Russian Railways. The corridor, when fully operational, is expected to take about 25-30 days for the cargo to reach Moscow from Mumbai, compared to the 45 days through the traditional Europe Marine route. The cost effectiveness is said to be around 20-30 per cent.

Trade sources, based on feedback from overseas missions, however, indicate that routing of cargo through the shorter North-South Corridor was still not favoured by importers of the region because of bureaucratic hassles faced in the Russian Federation. It is learnt that they would still like to receive their merchandise via the circuitous Europe Marine route, mainly because of the less complicated transport logistics.

Making a presentation on "Doing business with CIS countries" at an interactive Roundtable organised by the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) in Bangalore recently, Mr P.K.Mohapatra, Director, Ministry of Commerce, , observed that since most countries of the former USSR are landlocked, Iran was the most important transit point for goods from India.

According to him, the transit route through Iran provided ample scope for speedy and cost effective transportation of goods for Indian exporters. He said at present the time taken on the route was 30-37 days, as the volume of cargo was small.

Giving the historical perspective of the creation of the international North-South Transport Corridor, as a reliable transit route between India and the CIS region, he said it was the result of an agreement signed way back in September 2000 between India, Russian Federation and The Islamic Republic of Iran, and subsequently ratified. The long and time consuming route for export cargo movement between India and the Russian Federation traditionally has been through Red Sea-Suez Canal-Mediterranean Sea-North Sea (via Rotterdam)-Baltic Sea. The agreement covers all modes of transport and related infrastructure for movement of both passengers and goods, and in the case of India, it provides only for transportation of goods and by sea route alone.

According to the ministry official, parties to the agreement shall have multiple entry visa regime for personnel engaged in international transit of goods and passengers as per the procedure laid down by the respective parties.

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