Addressing Indians living in Russia, Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a community programme in Moscow said that India and Russia are working on the Chennai-Vladivostok Eastern Maritime Corridor.
Chennai-Vladivostok Eastern Maritime Corridor
Addressing Indians living in Russia, Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a community programme in Moscow said that India and Russia are working on the Chennai-Vladivostok Eastern Maritime Corridor. PM Modi said that they are discovering each other through Ganga-Volga dialogue.
“Two years ago, the first commercial consignment also reached here from the North-South Transport Corridor… Now we are also working on Chennai-Vladivostok Eastern Maritime Corridor. Both our countries are discovering each other through Ganga Volga dialogue and civilization.”
Eastern Maritime Corridor (EMC)
It is a proposed sea route between the Indian port of Chennai and the Russian port of Vladivostok.
The corridor is estimated to bring down transportation time between Indian and Russian ports in the Far East Region by up to 16 days.
Once complete, it will take 24 days, down from presently over 40 days, to transport goods from India to Far East Russia.
The present trade route between Mumbai and St. Petersburg covers a distance of 8,675 nautical miles.
The EMC will cover a distance of about 5,600 nautical miles, which is significantly shorter than the current route via the Suez Canal.
For India, it will provide a shorter and more efficient route to access the markets of the Far East, such as China and Japan.
Vladivostok
It is a major city in Russia, located in the Far East of the country.
It is located on the Golden Horn Bay, north of North Korea, and a short distance from Russia’s border with China.
It is the largest port on Russia’s Pacific coast, and home to the Pacific Fleet of the Russian Navy.
It is the eastern railhead of the legendary Trans-Siberian Railway, which connects the Far East of Russia to the capital Moscow, and further west to the countries of Europe.
At Vladivostok’s massive port, shipping and commercial fishing are the main commercial activities.
INSTC
The International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) and the Chennai-Vladivostok, or Eastern Maritime Corridor, would ensure transportation corridors between both the Western and Eastern coasts of India with Russia. The INSTC was established in September 2002 between Iran, India and Russia. The 7,200-kilometre-long multi-modal transportation corridor facilitates the movement of freight between Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Central Asia and Europe, besides Iran and India. Both India and Iran back the project, with New Delhi proposing to include Chabahar port, which it has been developing with Iran, to the INSTC framework.
The first India-bound Russian cargo — sent by train for the first time using the transportation corridor — reached Iran last year, having covered roughly 3,800 kilometres through Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan before being sent to India over sea.
