Improving Transnational Transport Corridors
In the OIC Member Countries: Concepts and Cases
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 Trade between corridor economies is not high, like the EU, but at 16% of global trade,
it is moving in the right direction, but they have a long way to go exhibiting similar
levels of openness of around 0.3, except for Kenya 0.5 (like Turkey).
 Border processing times have mostly halved since the introduction of more efficient
practices.
 Yet transit times remain long, with commercial speeds of only 13 kph, which is not
faster than railways were 100 years ago. The reason for such slow operations remain
the excessive number of police checks and other stops.
 Processing times at border posts have been cut dramatically following the introduction
of OSBS where processing time is 3 to 4 hours.
 The corridor has managed to leverage high levels of investment to support its further
development, partly because of political consensus, partly because improving
performance and partly because good governance.
 Despite the positive commentary, social development is still quite low as exhibited by
HDI of between 0.4 and 0.6 with high levels of unemployment in some countries.
4.6.11. Recommendation
The main recommendation is to institute risk management79 and green channeling at border
crossings for goods in transit to the Port. There is no reason to stop trucks that are in transit.
Transit fees to paid online and in advance. Improving road condition is also important.
4.7. International North-South Transport Corridor
This case study is built on a literature review including scientific journal articles and grey
literature, interviews with key persons and primary data collected during a field visit to the
INSTC Secretariat in Tehran on 31 July - 1 August 2017. Findings from the field visit are
emphasized rather than information from the open literature.
4.7.1. General factors
INSTC is a multimodal transnational transportation corridor established in September 2000 in
Saint Petersburg by three founding members namely the Islamic Republic of Iran (hereafter
Iran), Republic of India (hereafter India), and Russian Federation (hereafter Russia). INSTC is a
result of tightening relationships between India and Iran, and between Iran and Russia. India
and Russia have a traditionally strong relationship. Within four years after its establishment,
the membership is increased to 13 countries. The continuous goal is to promote transportation
cooperation among the Member States.
This case study will focus on the multimodal corridor from India to Russia via Iran, which also
includes Azerbaijan, as indicated i
79 Risk Management is a term used in Customs and Revenue Protection to assess the level of risk of particular transport entities;
this normally requires close cooperation between the customs organizations of each country and shared database.