Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- The development of transport and logistics cooperation is a strategic direction of cooperation between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

Turkmenistan is located at the crossroads of transcontinental corridors North-South, East-West and in modern conditions can become a transit hub connecting Uzbekistan with South Asia, as well as with the countries of the Caspian region.

For thousands of years, the countries of Central Asia have served as a transport and trade bridge between East and West, North and South, and today, in order to develop trade and economic cooperation with the countries of the Eurasian continent, special attention should be paid to transport and transit issues.

Further development of new transcontinental transport routes is a requirement of the time. Many of the existing routes that stretch from China to Europe, as well as connecting North and South, pass through the territory of the Central Asian countries.

It should be noted that Uzbekistan constantly takes the initiative to develop an extensive and reliably functioning network of international transport corridors in Central Asia with access to sea and ocean ports, and supports all reasonable projects in this direction.

Closer cooperation between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan in the transport and logistics sector can help expand the possibilities of multimodal transit cargo transportation along the Trans-Caspian route, using the potential of the port of Turkmenbashi.

It is noteworthy that in 2021, the growth of international cargo transportation by 17%, which amounted to almost 2 million tons, was ensured.

Along with this, over the five months of this year, there has been an additional increase in the international traffic of Uzbekistan with Turkmenistan, the indicators of which have already reached 800 thousand tons, an increase of 14%.

At the same time, the use of unified digital technologies in the transport and logistics system could contribute to solving such issues as idle cargo at the borders, the existence of different standards, limited hours of operation of checkpoints, imperfection of border crossing procedures.

Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan should also direct joint efforts to develop interregional multimodal corridors, simplify border crossing procedures, digitize customs, sanitary and other types of administration, and also focus on finding effective solutions to optimize transport and transit tariffs.

Bayazitov Ares Marsovich

Chief Researcher of the International Institute of Central Asia