Report puts infrastructure need at more than $25 billion, with a further $30 billion for enabling investments
A new World Bank Group report estimates that investment in the Trans-Caspian Transport Corridor (TCTC), also known as the Middle Corridor, could more than triple trade volumes along the route and halve travel times by 2040.
The report, Integration: World-Class Trade Logistics Along the Trans-Caspian Transport Corridor, projects that the same investments could raise GDP across the corridor countries by 3.3 percent and create two million additional jobs.
Integration: World-Class Trade Logistics Along the Trans-Caspian Transport Corridor
If governments pair infrastructure spending with reforms to trade and transport efficiency, it says, volumes could quadruple and travel times fall by two-thirds over the same period.
Nine countries, nearly 200 million people
The report defines the corridor as covering Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Türkiye, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, with a combined population of nearly 200 million.
It describes the TCTC as a multimodal route linking East Asia and Europe through Central Asia, the South Caucasus and Türkiye, using rail, Caspian Sea and Black Sea shipping, and road connections.
Armenia is not yet a host country of the corridor. The report includes it because its analytical horizon runs to 2040, and direct physical links are expected to be established in the 2030s.
Investment requirement
The report estimates that more than $25 billion in physical infrastructure will be needed through 2040, mainly for rail networks, maritime ports and feeder roads. It notes that many of the most critical projects are already under way or in advanced preparation.
A further $30 billion is estimated for “enabling” investments. These include road and rail links connecting the corridor to local economies, logistics hubs and inland terminals, and equipment such as locomotives, railcars, cargo-handling gear and digital systems.
The report says sustained gains in freight volumes and competitiveness will also depend on institutional reform and on how well countries and operators cooperate on border delays, documentation and hub coordination.
Four priority actions
On governance and operations, the report sets out four priorities:
- adopting a single digital corridor system, giving transport, transit and trade data one point of entry in place of fragmented paperwork;
- empowering or creating an integrated, market-oriented joint-venture operator for rail freight and Trans-Caspian shipping, connecting container rail and maritime services end to end;
- strengthening corridor-wide coordination to monitor performance, resolve bottlenecks and support joint decisions;
- modernizing state-owned rail, port and shipping companies through better governance, financial sustainability and regulation, so they can operate more commercially.
Bank’s assessment
The Bank links the corridor’s relevance to supply chain disruption and to floods, droughts and other weather-related risks, which it says raise the value of faster and more reliable routes. Many corridor countries are significant producers of energy, critical minerals, raw materials and food products. The report says the route offers them a way to reduce exposure to external shocks and convert transit demand into domestic investment and jobs.
World Bank Vice President for Europe and Central Asia Antonella Bassani said the corridor could move beyond carrying goods and people to become a regional platform generating business, jobs and local industrial growth. She said this would require physical infrastructure together with complementary investments in service delivery and new approaches to trade facilitation, transport operations and cross-border collaboration.
Charles Cormier, the Bank’s Regional Director for Infrastructure in Europe and Central Asia, said realizing the corridor’s potential depends on practical improvements that make freight movement faster, more predictable and easier to manage across borders.
All figures are World Bank projections based on the report’s modelling, which covers 2023 to 2040. /// nCa, 29 September 2026