A new route for export designated grain from Siberia has been launched as the first shipment of 500 tons of wheat was sent from the station of Tatarskaya in West Siberia to Turkey via the border crossing of Kars.
The transit time will make some 12 days, twice as short as the traditional shipping route via the Black Sea. The new route utilizing the Baku – Tbilisi – Kars corridor is expected to help increase the export of Siberian grain to Turkey, and to make the load on port facilities in the Black Sea less thus allowing the port terminals to focus on other cargoes.
Rail delivery is also expected to be cheaper than the traditional route involving rail transportation to ports, terminal handling, vessel chartering, freight forwarding, and shipping by sea. The transit time in this case makes almost a month.