Baku-Tbilisi-Kars Railway Celebrates Seven Years of Transforming Regional Connectivity

The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway marked its seventh anniversary this week, celebrating the transformative role it has played in regional connectivity since its inauguration on October 30, 2017.

This strategic railway corridor links Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Türkiye, bridging Europe and Asia along the Trans-Caspian International Transport Corridor, also known as the Middle Corridor. The BTK provides a faster, more efficient route for transporting goods across the Eurasian continent.

Over the past seven years, the BTK has contributed to strengthening economic ties, facilitating trade, and promoting sustainable development in the region. As a vital component of the Middle Corridor, it has also enhanced Azerbaijan’s position as a strategic transit hub, supporting efforts toward sustainable transportation and further integration into global logistics networks.

The completion of the USD 250 million modernization project on the BTK’s Georgian section by Azerbaijan Railways in May this year has expanded the railroad’s overall throughput capacity from 1 million to 5 million tons, with plans to further increase it to 17 million tons in the future.

The 826-kilometer-long BTK line, connecting Azerbaijan’s railway network to Türkiye’s railroad grid, offers a quicker and more accessible rail link between China, Central Asia, and Europe. Traversing from Baku through Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, to Kars in northeast Türkiye, it significantly reduces the overland journey between China and Europe to just 15 days, compared to the previous 25-45 days.

In September, ADY signed an agreement with Chinese companies to facilitate freight supplies via the BTK line on the Middle Corridor. Since early 2024, more than 210 container block trains with 420,000 tons of China-made import and transit goods have reached Azerbaijan. By the year-end, more than 300 block trains are expected to travel from China westward to Azerbaijan and European markets. The ultimate target is to send 1,000 trains per year.

President Ilham Aliyev has recently stated that the sharp rise in cargo traffic through the territory of Azerbaijan encourages additional investments in projects to enhance the capacity of the international corridors traversing the country.

In 2019, Azerbaijan Railways transported 3.8 million tons of transit cargo, while the freight volume hit 6.8 million tons in 2023.

Azerbaijan Railways (ADY) data suggest that, compared to the first four months of last year, the volume of rail transit cargo transported in January-April 2024 increased by 14 percent, and in the first quarter, it was comparatively up by 10 percent.

In the first nine months of 2024, cargo volume along the Middle Corridor surged by 70 percent, reaching 3.4 million tons. Container shipments have made up a significant share of total freight volume along this route, tripling compared to the same period last year to reach 34,600 TEU.

Additionally, container transit from China has grown by more than 20 times since the beginning of this year.