Middle Corridor Likely To Fill Gap For Container Shipping Amid Hormuz Tensions - Azerbaijani Railways

(MENAFN- Trend News Agency) ** BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 16.** The Middle Corridor may become a key alternative for container transport if the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic maritime chokepoint, is closed, Ziya Mammadov, deputy head of the Marketing and Tariff Policy Department at Azerbaijan Railways, wrote on his social media account, Trend reports.

Mammadov highlighted that disruptions in the Strait could delay supply chains connecting Asia, the Middle East, and Europe while raising logistics costs.

“In such a scenario, alternative multimodal routes gain importance. One of them is the Middle Corridor, linking China and Central Asia to Europe,” Mamedov noted.

Container transport along the Middle Corridor typically combines rail and maritime segments, including a 4,256 km rail route through Central Asia, an approximately 508 km maritime crossing of the Caspian Sea, and a railway connection through the South Caucasus to Türkiye and Europe.

“Critical regional infrastructure, such as the Port of Baku, plays a central role in supporting multimodal container flows across the Caspian region. The port currently handles around 15 million tonnes of cargo annually. A new phase of development is underway, which, once completed, will expand its capacity to 25 million tonnes per year and allow for the handling of up to 500,000 TEU containers annually,” the report notes.

While maritime transport remains dominant in global container trade, potential disruptions at strategic chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz underscore the growing importance of alternative logistics routes. In this context, the Middle Corridor is gradually emerging as a vital overland Eurasian route for container shipping.

The Middle Corridor is a transport trade route passing through several countries in the region and connecting Asia with Europe. It serves as an alternative to the traditional Northern and Southern corridors.

The route begins in China and passes through Central Asian countries such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. It then crosses the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Türkiye before reaching Europe. The Middle Corridor is a land-based route that bypasses longer maritime paths, linking eastern parts of Asia, including China, with Europe.

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