India, Iran, Russia push alternative to Suez Canal

[SubWater]

India, Iran, Russia push alternative to Suez Canal
Wed Oct 31, 2018 11:00AM

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The International North-South Transport Corridor is to link the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf via Iran to Russia and North Europe.


India, Iran and Russia will meet next month to discuss the operation of a 7,200 km trade and transport corridor that presents a cheaper and shorter alternative to the traditional route through the Suez Canal.

The International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), a multimode network of sea and rail routes, will link the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf via Iran to Russia and North Europe.

The project comes in the backdrop of China’s multi-trillion-dollar One Belt One Road initiative. Within Iran, the two routes overlap in a potential boon to future businesses.


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New Delhi has been actively courting Tehran, given the utmost importance it attaches to the route and Iran has been receptive.

Once operational, the corridor will allow India to send its goods to Bandar Abbas in Iran by sea, from where they will be transported to Iran’s Bandar Anzali on the Caspian Sea by road. Next, they will be shipped to Astrakhan in Russia and transported into Europe by rail.

The route will cut the time and cost of delivering goods by about 30 percent to more than 40 percent. Compared with the Suez Canal, the corridor will reduce the transport time between Mumbai and Moscow to about 20 days. The estimated capacity of the corridor is 20 to 30 million tonnes of goods per year.

India’s Union Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu on Saturday met a Russian business delegation in New Delhi, where he said "all issues may be resolved in order to operationalize the (INSTC) route as early as possible."

An official statement said India, Russia and Iran will hold a trilateral meeting on November 23 to make the route operational soon, Indian media reported Tuesday.

"The INSTC is the shortest multimodal transportation route linking the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf via Iran to Russia and North Europe," India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry said in the statement.

To access resource-rich Central Asia, India has to route its goods either through China, Europe or Iran. The routes through China and Europe are long, expensive and time consuming, with Iran being the most viable one.


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The first dry run of the INSTC was conducted in August 2014 and the second in April 2017.

India is seeking to leverage the strategic Chabahar port in southeast Iran to link with the INSTC.

The country has committed $500 million to Chabahar that it is building chiefly to crack open a trade and transport route to landlocked Afghanistan.

Last week, senior officials from the two countries met their counterpart in Tehran to discuss a full commissioning of the port that the three countries are jointly developing.

It was the first trilateral meeting of the Coordination Council of the Chabahar Agreement, coming in the face of fresh sanctions imposed by Washington on the Islamic Republic.

"All sides shared the view that a full operationalization of the trilateral Chabahar initiative will promote connectivity and economic development of Afghanistan and the region," India’s External Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

For landlocked Afghanistan, the corridor means opening the way to billions of dollars in trade and cutting the country’s dependence on foreigners for aid as well as stemming the illicit opium trade.

 

[Chakar The Great]

India has been coming up these new routes every six month, the question is who is going to fund it? A route on the map is far different from a real corridor on ground.

Let me be clear on one thing, no route is good or economically viable for India unless it pases through Pakistan. Same goes for Afghanistan. So India either has to swallow its ego, like all other countries did when they were trying to become an economic power or keep crawling.

 

[SubWater]

India has been coming up these new routes every six month, the question is who is going to fund it? A route on the map is far different from a real corridor on ground.

Let me be clear on one thing, no route is good or economically viable for India unless it pases through Pakistan. Same goes for Afghanistan. So India either has to swallow its ego, like all other countries did when they were trying to become an economic power or keep crawling.

So you want to reach Europe through Pakistan and Afghanistan ?????

You are wrong the roads are almost completed.
now we can go from Bandar Abbas to Qazvin by train. and Qazvin to Rasht rail is almost completed too but did not started to work yet(Just few weeks to official start)
From Rasht to Anzali port they can use trucks and that is less than 50 km and rail will complete in next year.

Longest Iran train bridge in Qazvin-Rasht road

 

[Chakar The Great]

So you want to reach Europe through Pakistan and Afghanistan ?????

You are wrong the roads are almost completed.
now we can go from Bandar Abbas to Qazvin by train. and Qazvin to Rasht rail is completed too but did not started to work yet(Just few weeks to official start)
From Rasht to Anzali port they can use trucks and that is less than 50 km and rail will complete in next year.

Longest Iran train bridge in Qazvin-Rasht road

Read my comment again, where does India fit into picture?

Tell me about the roads to Afghanistan. A new corridor is not just drawing a line and building a road over it. Its not a strategic corridor. But if you are celebrating a new road, congratulations.

 

[SubWater]

Read my comment again, where does India fit into picture?

Tell me about the roads to Afghanistan. A new corridor is not just drawing a line and building a road over it. Its not a strategic corridor. But if you are celebrating a new road, congratulations.

The south north corridor is about connecting Russia to India through Iran.
I don't know why you are bringing Afghanistan here.
The chabahar port and route to Afghanistan is another related project.
that project also progressing w/ good speed.
But South North corridor is almost done and India and Russia can transfer their goods through Iran already without using Suez canal.

 

[SuvarnaTeja]

Read my comment again, where does India fit into picture?

Tell me about the roads to Afghanistan. A new corridor is not just drawing a line and building a road over it. Its not a strategic corridor. But if you are celebrating a new road, congratulations.

You are getting confused. There are two separate projects.

International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), is a multi modal transportation established by Iran, Russia and India for the purpose of promoting transportation cooperation among the Member States. This corridor connects India Ocean and Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea via Islamic republic of IRAN, then is connected to St. Petersburg and North European via Russian Federation. Members include Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Armenia, Republic of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Republic of Tajikistan, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Ukraine, Republic of Belarus, Oman, Syria, Bulgaria (Observer).

Then there is a separate project founded by Iran, India & Afghanistan to trade with Central Asia through Chabahar.

 

[Dinky]

The North South Transport corridor (NSTC) is a joint Iranian, Indian, Russian and Azerbaijan project.
The NSTC route will be 30% cheaper and 40% shorter than the current traditional route

 

[SubWater]

 

[Shahzaz ud din]

Once operational, the corridor will allow India to send its goods to Bandar Abbas in Iran by sea, from where they will be transported to Iran’s Bandar Anzali on the Caspian Sea by road. Next, they will be shipped to Astrakhan in Russia and transported into Europe by rail.

Once the corridor is operational, India:
Will send its goods to Bandar Abbas in Iran by sea,
From Bandar Abbas by road they will be transporte to Iran’s Bandar Anzali on the Caspian Sea .
Next,from Bandar Anzali they will be shipped to Astrakhan in Russia
From Astrakhan it will be transported into Europe by rail.

 

[Hack-Hook]

Once the corridor is operational, India:
Will send its goods to Bandar Abbas in Iran by sea,
From Bandar Abbas by road they will be transporte to Iran’s Bandar Anzali on the Caspian Sea .
Next,from Bandar Anzali they will be shipped to Astrakhan in Russia
From Astrakhan it will be transported into Europe by rail.

When the coridor become ready its rail road from Bandar Abbas till the end of the road in Europe.

 

[Cobra Arbok]

Read my comment again, where does India fit into picture?

Tell me about the roads to Afghanistan. A new corridor is not just drawing a line and building a road over it. Its not a strategic corridor. But if you are celebrating a new road, congratulations.

You haven't been paying attention to current geopolitics, have you? pakistan is irrelevant geopolitically due to its dispites with afghanistan, which blocks it from Central asia. The gwadar project has been going on for over a decade but has not yielded any results. een china is becoming sceptical of its results. Meanwhile the INSTC has only been serioulsy planned for a couple of years and most of it is already operational. As a result india is the biggest investor in the region after russia, china, and us, and indias trade with russia and central asia far surpasses that of pakistan. chabhar port was just the beginning. the only real hurdle was us sanctions, and now that india has the waiver, its connectivity with central asia will increase rapidly.

with that being said, finding an alternative to the siez is unlikely.

 

[delta2]

You haven't been paying attention to current geopolitics, have you? pakistan is irrelevant geopolitically due to its dispites with afghanistan, which blocks it from Central asia. The gwadar project has been going on for over a decade but has not yielded any results. een china is becoming sceptical of its results. Meanwhile the INSTC has only been serioulsy planned for a couple of years and most of it is already operational. As a result india is the biggest investor in the region after russia, china, and us, and indias trade with russia and central asia far surpasses that of pakistan. chabhar port was just the beginning. the only real hurdle was us sanctions, and now that india has the waiver, its connectivity with central asia will increase rapidly.

with that being said, finding an alternative to the siez is unlikely.

Pakistan wants the war in Afghanistan to end as soon as possible. Russia wants the same. The USA has been spending $50 billion a year in Afghanistan for the last 17 years. They want it to end too but in an acceptable way.

The Gwadar Port is essentially a gateway to a cheaper, safer, and a more reliable alternative to the South China See, where a war could break out at any moment. This is something that keeps Indians up at night. They see Gwadar Port in their nightmares!

 

[salarsikander]

een china is becoming sceptical of its results

LOL Indians And their mental masturbation.

So after spending 50+ billions on Cpec project of which gawadar is the entrance and then again ganting pakistan more funds a dumb indian here speaks for china by saying that china has become SCEPTICAL. Seriously Even these NRI are brain dead . lol

 

[Cobra Arbok]

LOL Indians And their mental masturbation.

So after spending 50+ billions on Cpec project of which gawadar is the entrance and then again ganting pakistan more funds a dumb indian here speaks for china by saying that china has become SCEPTICAL. Seriously Even these NRI are brain dead . lol

yet despite all those funds, nothing has changed over the past decade with regards to gwadar. wheras it took only a few years for chabahar and the INSTC to materialize with major russian investments. Now that india got a us waiver, the final hurdle has been cleared, and you will see more connectivity between russia and central asia than there already is.

Pakistan wants the war in Afghanistan to end as soon as possible. Russia wants the same. The USA has been spending $50 billion a year in Afghanistan for the last 17 years. They want it to end too but in an acceptable way.

The Gwadar Port is essentially a gateway to a cheaper, safer, and a more reliable alternative to the South China See, where a war could break out at any moment. This is something that keeps Indians up at night. They see Gwadar Port in their nightmares!

i admit, five years ago, gwadar and cpec made me nervous. Now after billions of dollars wasted in failed investments, i have become relaxed because i realized gwadar and cpec is nothing but pie in the sky. Of course china will keep investing, but their investments are only to gain more control over pakistans economy than they already have through debt-trap diplomacy. Just like how they took that port from sri lanka. Meanwhile, it took only a few years for india, russia, and iran to complete the chabahar projet and materialize the INSTC. I admit the US sanctions caused some delay, but no that we have a waiver, it is full steam ahead. Pakistan will be bypassed unless it solves its disputes with india.

BTW, isnt gwadar supposed to surpass dubai by 2030? If that is true you would better hurry up and at least make it comparable to an average Indian port.

 

[salarsikander]

yet despite all those funds, nothing has changed over the past decade with regards to gwadar. wheras it took only a few years for chabahar and the INSTC to materialize with major russian investments. Now that india got a us waiver, the final hurdle has been cleared, and you will see more connectivity between russia and central asia than there already is.

LOl listen dumbass, 10 yers ago there was no investment on CPEC for gawadar nor we had the leadership wuth such vision, what cheap bhung are you on ?

it took only a few years for india, russia, and iran to complete the chabahar projet and materialize the INSTC. I admit the US sanctions caused some delay, but no that we have a waiver, it is full steam ahead. Pakistan will be bypassed unless it solves its disputes with india.

LOL talk about when it its full fledged port before that it all empty hot air like MMRCA mother of all deal that we heard since past 10 years , and it come to what mere 36 or so jets of 112 lol