On October 21 in Astana, Presidents Ilham Aliyev and Kassym-Jomart Tokayev used a meeting of the bilateral Supreme Interstate Council and a paired business forum to move existing machinery into coordinated use.
At the head-of-state level, the Supreme Interstate Council assigned a practical work program and set a trade target with instructions down the line to activate the bilateral investment fund. (“Supreme” here connotes “highest joint authority,” not “supranational authority.”)
The public package was concrete: roughly 16 sectoral accords across logistics, energy adjacency, digital links and industry; a named Middle Corridor development initiative; and a target to lift bilateral trade toward US$1 billion, with the Kazakhstan–Azerbaijan Direct Investment Fund tasked to activate finance projects.
One decision changed the operating picture immediately. Azerbaijan removed restrictions on cargo transit to Armenia, and officials marked the first post-Soviet grain shipment from Kazakhstan routed via Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia. This creates a usable feeder into the Corridor rather than a theoretical option, and it begins to diversify the South Caucasus link on practical terms.
The timing also matters. Brussels recently decided to scale its Global Gateway Initiative to the trans-Caspian chain, while international lenders are active on port and corridor capacity. The bilateral summit agreements align a practical implementation program agreed at the head-of-state level with those financing clocks.
This raises the probability that tariff work, terminal sequencing, and early rolling-stock or fleet upgrades will proceed on a schedule that partners can underwrite. This is why the meeting was not a routine ceremony but the start of routine operations.
To lock in these gains, the European Union should now move from general endorsement to time-bound funding commitments tied to the trans-Caspian operating schedule. Support must be concrete and robust: guarantees and grants aligned to published rail–port rotations, customs-IT interoperability, and vessel and yard upgrades with verifiable milestones.
Such alignment would translate Global Gateway into bankable capacity on near-term commissioning windows.
Operations on the ground
Azerbaijan’s removal of cargo-transit restrictions to Armenia, paired with the first post-Soviet grain routed from Kazakhstan via Azerbaijan–Georgia–Armenia, adds immediately usable capacity and practical redundancy through the South Caucasus.
Shippers and lenders can now have greater confidence in treating the feeder as schedulable rather than hypothetical. Ministries received docketed tasks tied to port, rail and customs timetables.
The operational center is the trans-Caspian link. Alignment between Azerbaijan’s port of Alat and Kazakhstan’s Aktau and Kuryk will determine whether the new feeder produces reliable rotations. For this, there are necessary and specific tasks, which include smoothing rail handoffs, holding vessel cycles to published windows and clearing queues with targeted port works.
EBRD- and EU-backed upgrades at Aktau (for berth extensions, handling gear, and yard improvements) address known bottlenecks that drive slot volatility. These funded works have direct effects on confidence about timing.
Improvement of customs and data exchange will decide whether added capacity is converted into predictable throughput. Baku and Astana have agreed to specific digitalization projects aiming at real-time cargo visibility, faster clearances and fewer ad hoc surcharges.
Harmonized tariff bands, synchronized border routines, and interoperable IT will reduce wait-times on the Caspian segment and make them more regular. This amelioration would, in turn, improve pricing discipline for east–west moves.
The immediate objective is to lock the feeder into published schedules that partners can plan around in hours and days. Azerbaijan’s transport authorities are issuing facilitation standards and process timelines, anchoring terminal run-plans and locomotive diagrams.
The shortest path to demonstrable gains is to align these standards with rail timetables on both shores, then enforce slot discipline on the sea link, and finally publish on-time performance that counterparties can verify. Performance against these schedules will be checked at tariff reviews and rail timetable resets.
Finance that moves projects
The bilateral Direct Investment Fund, now slated for activation, serves as the first-resort subscriber for rolling stock, port handling, and vessel upgrades. It gives the executing ministries and state operators a defined place for anchoring initial equity or quasi-equity.
It allows procurements to be staged in tranches and timed to actual delivery windows. Public signaling around the fund is explicit about activating the Kazakhstan–Azerbaijan Direct Investment Fund and about the trade target of near $1 billion, which together frame the scale of early projects without overstating institutional change.
Because counterparties will be able to point to a domestic subscriber and a named project list rather than to general intent, this structure will accelerate co-financing talks with EU Global Gateway instruments and international lenders.
Where international financial institutions (IFIs) already support capacity, such as the EBRD-backed upgrades at Aktau, the bilateral fund can take the first loss or match tranches. That will accelerate berth works, handling gear, and yard improvements tied to schedule integrity. The result is a clearer path from agreement to disbursement, with roles divided between domestic capital for enabling assets and external capital for scale-up.
The cadence of project implementation follows from this packaging. Port equipment, locomotive purchases, and limited Caspian fleet renewals can be tendered in lots corresponding to funding tranches and seasonal maintenance windows. Disbursement schedules should be published alongside delivery milestones, with currency-risk terms specified up front to avoid mid-stream renegotiation.
Such a predictable rhythm as this will lower execution risk for operators. Shippers will be able to price service levels on the basis of announced commissioning dates rather than on broad statements of intent.
Market and regional effects
The effects of the added feeder link through Armenia will show up first in throughput and pricing. As rotations on the trans-Caspian link stabilize, slot scarcity eases and tariff work will gain a real baseline.
Harmonized tariff bands and synchronized border routines will reduce and standardize the time that containers or wagons will wait at a port, terminal, or border before they move again. This will support clearer pricing tables for east–west moves. The effect will be a gradual “thickening” of the trans-Caspian middle segment, not a step-wise phase change.
Cargo mix will prove the concept. Grain will move first because the market is ready and the handling is familiar. Containers will follow if lines shorten and customs clearance becomes predictable.
This orderly results-focused approach will allow operators to add equipment step by pragmatic step: yard gear before new cranes and locomotives before bigger vessels. Where the EBRD-backed works at Aktau clear bottlenecks, for example, the official statements will materialize through change in how long cargo waits to proceed and how often departures run on time.
The regional dividend is risk diversification. With an operational Armenia link, the South Caucasus no longer depends on a single Baku–Kars–Tbilisi rail pathway; the China–Europe chain gains a sanctions-resilient option that does not rely on Russia. Moreover, the timing aligns with European financing clocks, as the Global Gateway Initiative gives co-financiers a common frame for pacing and disclosure.
Constraints nevertheless remain. Vessel availability on the trans-Caspian link represents a cap on near-term surges. Rotations are also limited by seasons and maintenance schedules. Crucially, customs IT interoperability and data exchange govern whether additional capacity is bankable.
The immediate and straightforward test is to publish on-time and wait-time metrics by terminal pairs (Aktau–Alat, Kuryk–Alat, and eventually Turkmenbashi–Alat) and to improve these quarter by quarter. Pricing discipline should then follow.
Bottom-up geoeconomic effects
The Astana summit converted a familiar agenda into operating facts. One decision opened an Armenia feeder; another put bilateral finance into play; a third aligned implementation schedules for Corridor projects with active European funding windows.
The net effects are straightforward: schedules that can be kept, assets that can be procured, and prices that can be posted against real service. The European Union should now provide specific, measurable support to the Middle Corridor, aligned to published operating schedules and near-term commissioning milestones.
The strategic meaning extends beyond the South Caucasus. With redundancy in place, the China–Europe chain acquires a viable, sanctions-resilient option through the Caspian that does not rely on Russia.
That option will not replace sea or northern rail routes, but it will tighten competition at the margin, pulling down risk premia and rewarding operators who can prove time certainty. Funded works at Aktau and a first-resort domestic subscriber shorten the path from announcement to commissioning. This is what matters to shippers and lenders.
Over the next several years, these developments will manifest in three ways. First, pricing will tighten around published pricing tables as wait-times become more predictable and on-time performance becomes auditable by pair of port terminals.
Second, cargo composition will broaden from grain to containers as queue times fall and customs become predictable, supporting upgrades in planned stages. Third, Central Asian exporters will gain leverage from a choice among corridors that will discipline tariffs and improve contract terms even when volumes remain modest relative to ocean freight.
The broader Eurasian consequence is cumulative rather than immediate. A thicker trans-Caspian middle segment, backed by EU-aligned financing clocks and a functioning bilateral fund, gives insurers, integrators, and rail operators a platform they can plan around.
If authorities now tie the Armenian feeder link to published timetables on both Caspian shores, while publishing quarter-on-quarter gains in on-time and wait-time metrics, then the Middle Corridor will complete its evolution from political aspiration to durable commercial habit, reshaping Eurasian geoeconomics over the medium and long term.
Robert M Cutler is director and senior research fellow, Energy Security Program, NATO Association of Canada, and senior fellow in geoeconomics and strategic negotiations at Strategy International. He was previously for many years a senior researcher at the Institute of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, Carleton University.
