Offering expected time savings of 40%, with a 30% reduction in the cost of trade, the first pilot transports under TIR between India and Iran along the intermodal International North-South Corridor (INSTC) have been set for early 2018 at strategic talks in Mumbai.
The two-day meeting gathered 20 high level representatives from India’s and Iran’s transport industries as well as representatives from Customs.
The goal of the meeting was to discuss the implementation of TIR and to establish cooperation between representatives of the public and private sectors in order to activate the use of TIR along the Corridor.
INSTC is a multimodal transport corridor conceived in 2000 by India, Iran and Russia – offering significant trade prospects for all three countries. Later INSTC was expanded to include 10 new members: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Oman, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkey and Ukraine.
During a visit to the port of Mumbai, the Indian Ambassador to Iran, Dr. Saurabh Kumar, highlighted the strategic importance of the INSTC corridor as well as Chabahar port in Iran. He welcomed the discussions between the public and private sectors of the two countries on how to facilitate transport and transit along this corridor, in particular by using TIR.
