The International North-South Transport Corridor

The International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) is a multimodal passenger and cargo transportation route from St. Petersburg to Mumbai (India), connecting South (Southeast) Asia, Northern and Western Europe through Russia.

It is the main route for transporting cargoes from India, South-East Asia, Africa and the Middle East to Europe and back, bypassing the Suez Canal. Its total length is 7,200 km.

The INSTC advantages over other routes:

• Shorter transport distances by two or more times.
• Saved time for transporting containerized cargoes (13-15 days instead of 37 days).
• Transportation cost reduced by 30%.

In September 2000, during the Second International Euro-Asian Conference on Transport in St. Petersburg, Russia, Iran, and India signed an intergovernmental agreement on the International North-South Transport Corridor, which was later joined by Oman, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Syria, and other countries.

The intensification of the INSTC development process in the Russian Federation started several years ago, which was also influenced by the Fifth Caspian Summit held in 2018, where the historic Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea was adopted.

We support the International North-South Transport Corridor project; it includes railway, ferry, and highway services that we plan to develop. Its launch will make it possible to deliver cargo 2.5 times faster than today, which is up to 25 million tons of cargo annually, from European countries through Iran to the Near East, Middle East, and South Asia.

The Astrakhan Region represents Russia in the strategically important Caspian macro-region, at the crossroads of the International North-South Transport Corridor and the northern part of the Great Silk Road. Historically, the region served as a link between the West and the East and was Russia's trade gateway on the Caspian Sea, so it was decided to create a port SEZ there.