Officials from Iran's Tehran Chamber of Commerce and China's Khorgos International Chamber of Commerce discussed creating a joint transport corridor to expand bilateral trade at a meeting in Tehran, Tin News reported on 22 July.

The talks come as the US continues to attempt to destroy Iran's rail and road network, including near the border with Turkmenistan at the start of the latest flare-up of trouble between the two parties. 

The latest talks officially point to Iran's push to insert itself into the Eurasian transit routes as competition continues to heat up with the Middle Corridor connecting to Azerbaijan and Turkey, which the West backs. Rail freight between the two countries has risen sharply, with Iranian dry ports receiving direct services from China via Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

Peyman Sanandaji, head of the Tehran chamber's transport commission, put forward four proposals covering a joint transport model via Khorgos, a pilot project, the exchange of logistics data, and a shared mechanism to resolve operational disputes, and called for joint operational projects with China in transport and transit.

Sanandaji said the Tehran chamber had spent two years pursuing Iran's connection to regional corridors through Khorgos, a strategic node in the region's transport network that could ease trade between Iran, China, Central Asia, Russia and Europe. The aim was to move from dialogue to operational projects that cut freight costs and develop routes between Iran and countries along the corridor, he said.

Ma Fuming, head of the Khorgos International Chamber of Commerce, proposed designing a joint corridor to ease trade and lower transport costs, framing it within China's Belt and Road Initiative. China had developed multiple routes to Central Asia and Europe in recent years, and Iran's geography could give it an important role in that network, he said.

Ma said customs formalities, transit procedures, fleet movement, tariffs and border processes needed to be reviewed jointly and bottlenecks removed for the routes to work, adding that specialist working groups and executive plans could speed up agreements. He declared the Khorgos chamber ready to cooperate on implementing the programmes.

Mohammad Ali Kargosha, a board member of the Association of Iranian International Forwarders, said developing the overland corridor required identifying operational obstacles precisely and forming joint technical committees, adding that use of the route was still at an early stage and some logistics bottlenecks had not been fully mapped.

Behnam Faramarzian, an adviser to the Tehran chamber's transport commission, pointed to the TIR convention on the international transport of goods, to which both Iran and China are parties, as a tool to develop road freight between them. He suggested the Chinese side pursue talks with countries along the route, in particular Kazakhstan, to expand use of the TIR system.

Sanandaji said the proposals raised at the meeting would be drawn up into a joint memorandum of understanding to enable operational cooperation in transport, logistics and transit between Iran and China.