MINSK, January 31. /TASS/. Belarus is looking for the possibility of establishing logistics corridors and routes to India through Russia and Iran, the country’s ambassador to Russia, Dmitry Krutoy, announced this during his visit to Astrakhan.

"The goal is to find an effective average tariff for delivery to Astrakhan, and for transportation to Iran, and for transportation across Iran to northern ports and, perhaps, even ending with a corridor to India. The Indian market is also important for us. Therefore, we must look for logistics corridors and routes to India, including through Iran," he said as quoted by the BelTA agency.

The diplomat recalled that two years ago, due to sanctions, Belarus was forced to redirect the supply of its cargo to Russian ports.

"And Astrakhan very quickly offered us a program of transshipment and upgrade for our cargo. First of all, they were interested in potash fertilizers, timber cargo, and metal products. The agreement on cargo transshipment, which we signed then, was implemented. But in 2023, average export prices for our main goods, therefore, logistics along the North-South corridor began to put more pressure on the overall economy of such transportation and volumes decreased. The main product range today is woodworking products and metal products," Krutoy said.

According to the diplomat, Belarus plans to expand the range of goods for transshipment through Astrakhan ports. "The Russian Railways company has retained for us the entire volume of discounts depending on the type of cargo. The upgrade of the port infrastructure in the Astrakhan region continues, technical processes for reloading and transshipment of these cargoes are being accelerated," the ambassador noted.

Russia, India and Iran signed an intergovernmental agreement on the creation of a North-South multimodal transport corridor in 2000. Later, the number of participants expanded to 14. The goal of the project is to attract transit of cargo flows from India, Iran and the Persian Gulf countries through Russia to Europe (in comparison with the sea route through the Suez Canal, the distance is reduced by more than half, which reduces the time and cost of transportation). Now the project unites several different transport systems of different states.