Education is one of the solutions to eliminate bottlenecks along the Middle Corridor – Richard Trifan
The United States pays great attention to the development of the logistics of the Middle Corridor, which faces a number of difficulties, one of the solutions to which should be education. American expert at the “The American-Eurasian Business Coalition” Richard Trifan gave his assessments in the interview with Kazinform News Agency's own correspondent.
As you know, the transport route passes through countries that have different standards in logistics, which is one of the so-called "bottlenecks" in the transport route. A good example is the EU, Türkiye, China, and Iran, which use a railway gauge of 1,435 cm, while Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Russia use the Soviet standard of 1,520 cm. The exception is Georgia, which uses both standards and has already built a branch line of the “Akhalkalaki-Kartsakhi” railway to Türkiye according to Western standards.
Richard Trifan believes that the formation and maintenance of uniform transport standards in all member countries of the Middle Corridor or the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR) will contribute not only to increasing the throughput of goods and reducing the delivery time, but also to the well-being of all project participants.
According to the expert, working with the two principal members of “The American-Eurasian Business Coalition” under Dr. Gerard Janco, specifically Dr. Ralph Winnie (Director, China Program and Vice President of Global Business Development) and Charles Sills (Senior Advisor, Director, Energy & the Environment), they collectively feel it is necessary to hold an "Educational Summit" with the participation of countries such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, China, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, which will be informed of three elements of the US long-term strategy for the Middle Corridor:
1. The general schedule of each stage of the construction of the Middle Corridor, which will consist of material/physical and technological infrastructure.
2. Engineering courses and professional training in each participating country on the construction of bridges, tunnels, roads (railway, auto), logistics infrastructure. So, time is needed to train specialists, hire teachers, and search for small and medium-sized businesses. The training program in each country will provide the time and number for the training of the necessary qualified personnel.
3. Standards that will be used throughout the route of the Middle Corridor (ISO and TCP/IP, IRIS, RSSB, UIC).
The idea is to create an educational cluster in each country along which the route of the Middle Corridor runs, according to Western standards, to train specialists (engineers and workers) from among the local population for the construction and future maintenance of transport infrastructure (security systems, alarm systems, border structures between countries, solar panels, information towers highways, communications, software, cybersecurity, etc.) under the supervision and management of specialists from leading world companies.
This U.S. strategy will be long-term in nature for 10-25 years. In particular, the implementation of the Middle Corridor project itself will be conditionally designed for 4-5 years and divided into the following estimated stages: 2024 – route design/design, 2025 – construction, 2026 – testing, 2027 – management/maintenance.
The United States believes that the Middle Corridor has great potential for cargo capacity in the long term. Thus, despite the World Bank's forecast on the transit of goods along the Middle Corridor up to 11 million tons per year by 2030, which will amount to 10% of the potential of The Trans-Siberian railway.
Richard Trifan is confident that with the implementation of common standards and technologies in all participating countries, the potential of the Middle Corridor can increase fivefold to 50-55 million tons of cargo per year, since common standards in all countries will help solve bottlenecks in logistics.
The American expert recommends the following areas for cooperation:
- Putting forward initiatives to create educational institutions in each country (in cities, close to roads) that will offer all the necessary courses in engineering, information technology and cybersecurity that meet all the above standards.
- Holding meetings with representatives of the education of transit countries to coordinate the issue of creating working groups.
- Cooperation with educational institutions of transit countries on the creation of training programs in engineering, information technology and sustainable development.
- The involvement of Western teachers, subject methodologists, including for small and medium-sized businesses.
- Involving the United States in the process of planning the construction and completion dates of road sections in order to adjust the educational process to train the necessary number of specialists for logistics services.
- Control over the fact that new jobs remain with the local population and bring profit to the local economy.
- Organization of succession planning for the workforce of transit countries, so that local engineers, workers and technical experts replace each other.
Thus, this initiative will allow the United States to be the first to propose a vision for the development of the Middle Corridor and adjacent territories of countries for the development of a transport route in the Caucasus and Central Asia.
At the same time, the involvement of other developed countries (Great Britain, Germany, and other EU countries, Japan) in the initiative is not excluded, which has benefited all participants in the Middle Corridor, especially in the countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus.
The expert emphasized that the applied standards for logistics will depend on the advanced technologies of those leading countries that will participate in the implementation of the Middle Corridor. For example, Japanese maglev trains are likely to use Japanese standards for this type of transport in the project.
