The Project New Eurasian land transport initiative (NELTI) was created during 2006-2008 by the International Road Transport Union (IRU) with the aim to develop regular commercial transportations of cargo between China, countries of Central Asia and Europe.
The official start of the project was on the 16th of September 2008 in Tashkent (Uzbekistan). Transportations by the project NELTI are executed on three main directions using TIR procedures and cover the territories of 24 countries, from the borders of China with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in the East to Belgium and the Netherlands in the West, from the Baltic ports in the North to Iran and Turkey in the South. The total number of road vehicles participating in the Project NELTI at a time made 20 trucks in average per month.
The total distance that the carriers covered made more than 1.56 million kilometres. In this way the average distance covered by one transport vehicle during one return route made 10,740 thousand km (5,370 km to one side). The total volume of cargo made 4.2 thousand tons and it means that one truck transported 14.4 tons to one side (28.8 tons during one return route).
The types of cargo transported within the framework of the Project are rather wide: food products, consumer goods, household utensils, pre-fabricated goods and installa installations, medicines, diplomatic goods and goods for military bases.
During the implementation of NELTI Project the data was received, confirming commercial efficiency of transportations between Asia and Europe, including data about the size of freights (about 4-5 thousand US dollars to one side depending on the route), about the structure of freight, and the main problems of the commercial transportation of cargoes were cleared out. The transportations were executed permanently and on general basis, they had exclusively commercial character. No preferences such as in „green corridors“or in other regimes were not given to make the transportations for the carriers easier.
One of the main factors that became clear during the implementation of NELTI, is the volume of „non-productive“ costs of road carriers, that make about 25% of the sum of freight and more than 39% of the delivery time of goods. It is evident that the decrease of those two factors would allow to shorten the transportation time, decrease the cost of freight and increase the efficiency of transportations and this automatically increases the competitiveness of road transport in the direction Asia-Europe.
In order to successfully implement the Project NELTI, in 12 countries (10 states-participants in CIS and also in Turkey and Iran) there were created coordination centres that included the representatives of international road carriers associations and also responsible officers of transport authorities, customs and internal affairs.
Important element of the Project NELTI was the monitoring of transportations. On the basis of it the methods of monitoring of UN ESCATO was adopted. In specially created diaries the drivers – participants of the Project fixed the data about their movements, border-crossings, compulsory stops, state of road and auxiliary infrastructure, official dues and unlawful levies and other problems. On the basis of those diaries the IRU post in CIS made a “road map” which had the goal to declare to the leaders of participating countries via which territories NELTI routes passed, the information about the administrative barriers interfering with the normal development of road transport, trade and transit in Eurasian region.
When the pilot phase of the implementation of the Project NELTI was over and the results were received, the Report was written where the recommendations were given on the development of Eurasian road transportations, deletion of barriers and simplifying of state border crossing procedures. There the main objective of NELTI was stated – to prepare the grounds and to abolish the obstacles for direct road transportations of cargo between China and Europe in the nearest future (full version of the Final Report can be found at NELTI site: www.iru-nelti.org).
When the results of the pilot phase of NELTI were pointed out during the 5th Eurasian IRU conference in Almaty (Kazakhstan) on the 11th of July 2009 and high efficiency of the Project was recognised both by the organisers and participants, the decision was taken on the continuation of the Project NELTI and on the implementation of its second phase since July 2009.
Source: International Business Magazine "SEA" 2010 №1 (56)
