The Middle Corridor is growingly rapidly in the container market segment. In 2024, the number of container trains grew by 3,200 per cent. Nevertheless, the route between China and Europe is still not the preferred route of choice. Growth on the Middle Corridor is attributable elsewhere, namely in Kazakhstan and Georgia.
A 33-fold increase in the amount of container trains is rather spectacular growth on a year-to-year basis. However, it has to be noted that the increase took on such a dramatic size due to the low number of container trains on the Middle Corridor in 2023, namely eleven.
Similarly, in the first eleven months of 2024, the total freight volume on the Middle Corridor grew by around 60 per cent to 4,1 million tonnes. That increase is not primarily attributable to freight from China, from where most container trains originate, but rather to Kazakhstan and Georgia, a market analyst tells Chinese media. The growth in the freight volume includes bulk materials such as oil and gas extraction equipment, as well as grain.
Successes and obstacles
The raw growth number of 3,200 per cent seems to suggest that people are massively switching to the route through Central Asia for their container transport needs. However, that is not exactly the case because of the many obstacles that remain on the Middle Corridor. Those include the numerous border crossings, transshipment points and pluriform railway tariffs between countries on the corridor.
There are also successes. Transit times have been reduced significantly: The time from China to Georgia has been shortened from 32 days to about 15 days, and the fastest transportation time from China to Istanbul can be as short as 12 days.
Nevertheless, the so-called Northern Corridor retains its advantageous position for China – Europe traffic for the time being. Even additional Russian sanctions have not scared transporters away from the route in favour of the Middle Corridor. Additionally, one does not run into the many border crossings and need for transshipment across the Caspian Sea. Rather, a freight train can continue from the Chinese border all the way to Poland in a single run.