Crossroad - Vertical Corridor

When reviewing Georgia's logistic potential usually everyone presumes East-West direction. And they are correct - This course should become pivotal to our development strategy and we will talk about it a lot in upcoming analytics. However, today we would like to draw your attention to another equally important route, that will help us to better illustrate Georgia as a true regional and global logistics HUB.

Like a cross, Georgia's transportation roads also comprise of vertical and horizontal international road lines that intercept each other. These are East-West and South-North directions.

In the blog below, we'd like to talk on South-North direction, which we conventionally nominate as Vertical Corridor.

Let's see what this direction is about and why it should be strongly emphasized in the future.

Georgia has existential importance for its southern neighbor. Without Vertical Corridor Armenia would find itself in a quite tough situation. Due to a tense geopolitical situation around it, this state is trapped from east-west sides. Today, its borders are open only in two directions: Iran and Georgia. Meanwhile, a Strategic economic and commercial partner for Armenia is Russia, with whom it makes part in several international trade unions. More than 90% of the freight turnover is conducted by road transport, and all of them pass through Georgia. The route for Armenian freights destined to Russia starts from the Sadakhlo border and ends at the Dariali border point.

However, Interestingly, on the way to Dariali, a commuter can get across to trailer trucks with Turkish, Turkmen, Kazakh, Uzbek, and Azerbaijan plate numbers on.

If in the case of Armenian vehicles everything is clear, looking at the above-mentioned freights, one can question himself: - but what has to do with Georgian Roads trailers originated from countries that have direct borders with Russia? Why are these trucks crossing Georgia first, prolonging their route, and then entering into Russian Federation? The answer can be clear if we are objectively pragmatic. Each driver prefers to enter Russia's territory as late as possible, thus avoid bothering road patrols, bureaucratic snags, and poor road infrastructure. For drivers, it is more convenient to transit Georgia with comfort, approach as possibly to the western part of Russia (i.e., economically the most developed part of it) and only then enter into the country. As for freights from Turkey, it is simpler: in absence of a common borderline with Russia, Turk drivers have to transit Georgia, which is way cheaper and better in terms of time than ferry crossing on the Black Sea.

Consequently, Georgia's Vertical Corridor represents not only the South-North line exclusively, but East-North (goods coming from Caspian region countries and Central Asia destined to Russia) and West-North (Goods from Turkey to Russia) courses respectively.

According to official statistical data of Georgian road patrol, in 2020, through Kazbegi Borderline (Dariali) in Georgia entered 142209 trucks and exited 136101.

Furthermore, to better highlight the influence of the Vertical Corridor, let's retrospect the history. Few can recall and even less can be aware that during WWII South-North course crossing exactly Georgia represented a strategic line for military supply to USSR. Millions of tons of aid in form of so-called Lend-Lease Granted by the USA were coming from Persia (that time being under the British protectorate) reaching the USSR, passing Azerbaijan and Georgia. Therefore, like the historic silk road, nominated by us a Vertical Corridor is also decorated with historic passages.

So here we are. Now you know what the Vertical corridor is. in the next blog we suggest you to brainstorm and discuss the gigantic profit developing this course can bring to us. Let's see how Georgia and each of its citizens can benefit from it. Let's uncover the implicit potential of this route and find out why Georgia holds a real chance to become a global gamechanger in world logistics.

Stay tuned!