The Readiness of Port Logistics Services in the Caspian Sea Within the Eurasian Transport Corridor – Case Study of the Port of Aktau

Due to recent geo-political developments, the importance of the trans-Eurasian transport corridor, especially through the Caspian Sea has increased considerably. The Caspian Sea is strategically located at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, thus making its seaports essential for the sustainable operation of the Eurasian transport corridor. The Caspian Sea ports along with forming important transport nodes and acting as gateways to landlocked countries in Central Asia and the Caucasus, play also a vital role in the global supply chain providing the necessary infrastructure, logistics services, and connectivity to ensure the smooth transfer of goods from sea transport to land-based transportation modes, thus enabling efficient trade flows along the Eurasian transport corridor. Although the Caspian seaports provide comprehensive logistics services, including cargo handling, storage, customs clearance, and documentation; the demand for more efficient and sustainable logistics operations has grown considerably during the last year at the given ports. In the framework of quality assessment, the paper investigates the general readiness of logistics services in the ports of the Caspian Sea based on the statistical and empirical data within the case study from the Port of Aktau. Special attention within this work will be paid to the evaluation of preliminarily identified challenges such as inadequate hard infrastructure, e.g. adequate berths, insufficiency of the vessel/cargo ships, handling equipment, storage facilities and terminal container construction to accommodate growing trade volumes; limited connectivity and inter-modality, insufficient regulatory and customs procedures, e.g. cargo declaration and inspection; digitalisation of port processes and operations, availability of value-added services, customer service satisfaction, security and safety issues as well as environmental concerns.