By Golnar Motevalli

June 12, 2022, (Bloomberg) – Iran’s state-owned shipping company said it had started its first transfer of Russian goods to India, using a new trade corridor that passes through the Islamic Republic, a port official said. Iranian.

The Russian cargo consists of two 40-foot (12.192-meter) containers of laminated wood sheets, weighing 41 tons, which left St. Petersburg for the port city of Astrakhan on the Caspian Sea, the agency said on Saturday. official press of the Islamic Republic, quoting Dariush Jamali, director of a jointly owned Iranian-Russian terminal in Astrakhan.

The report did not say when the shipment, which it described as an initial “pilot” transfer to test the corridor, left or gave further details of the goods in the shipment.

From Astrakhan, the cargo will cross the Caspian to the northern Iranian port of Anzali and will be transferred by road to the southern port of Bandar Abbas on the Persian Gulf. From there it will be loaded onto a ship and sent to the Indian port of Nhava Sheva, IRNA said.

Jamali said the transfer was coordinated and managed by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines Group and its regional offices in Russia and India and is expected to take 25 days.

Since Russia was sanctioned for its war on Ukraine, Iranian officials have been keen to relaunch a stalled project to develop the so-called North-South Transit Corridor that uses Iran to connect Russia to the Asian export markets. The plan eventually involves the construction of a railway line that can transfer goods arriving from Iranian ports in the Caspian Sea to the southeastern port of Chabahar.

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