With this initiative, the Minister of Transport of Uzbekistan, Ilkhom Makhkamov, took part in the first meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Economy and Transport of Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Turkey in Tashkent. According to him, the new multimodal corridor will be formed through Turkey, Caucasus, Central Asia, South Asia and Afghanistan.
Uzbekistan is considering the possibility of exporting products to Europe through Georgian ports. The prime minister of Uzbekistan, Abdulla Aripov, told his Georgian counterpart Irakli Gharibashvili at the July meeting that Georgia is "one of the most important transport corridors" for Uzbekistan.
As is known, Georgia is participating in such important projects as the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, the Black Sea-Caspian Sea route, and the construction/reconstruction of the East-West highway.
The Minister of Transport of Uzbekistan stated that taking into account the extremely high growth potential of South Asian countries in the short and medium term, it is necessary to make joint efforts with these countries for the development of cargo transportation.
According to Ilkhom Makhkamov, Uzbek transporters are already gradually testing and starting to transport goods by road via Afghanistan to Pakistan. The volume of cargo transportation on the Pakistan-Afghanistan-Uzbekistan route has increased significantly recently. In the first six months of 2022, the volume of transported goods increased by 2.6 times and amounted to 330,000 tons. In the same period, the volume of cargo transportation between Uzbekistan and the countris of the CIS, the Middle East, the Caucasus and the European Union, compared to the same period in 2021, increased 3.5 times and reached 52 thousand tons.
On the other hand, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu states that "the risks and crucial situations in the world emphasize the importance of cooperation between the Turkish states."