Azerbaijan is located at the crossroads of the east-west Middle Corridor and the north-south INSTC. A convenient circumstance for the rail freight business in the country. As international transport volumes grow, Azerbaijan Railways (ADY) grows accordingly. Recent figures confirm that development.
Despite the US-Israeli war against Iran, ADY’s terminal in the Iranian city Astara performed well in the first nine months of 2026. It handled 33% more goods than in the same period of 2025: 631,000 tonnes. In September specifically, freight handling increased by 52% to 93,000 tonnes.
The Astara terminal is located just across the border from Azerbaijan in Iran. It functions as a key freight hub on the Russia–Iran corridor, the INSTC.
Meanwhile, ADY said it received 416 block trains from China between January and September 2026. This is 40% more than during those same months last year.
In terms of overall transit traffic through its territory, Azerbaijan recorded a 10% growth in H1 2026. This equals a total of eight million tonnes. “In the medium term, our goal is to increase cargo transportation from Azerbaijan on the east-west and north-south routes to 15 million tons in each direction”, the country’s President Ilham Aliyev explained at a CIS meeting in Turkmenistan.