Tekirdağ: Connecting Asia and Europe

The western province of Tekirdağ will become a railway hub connecting Asia to Europe with the completion of the Tekirdağ – Muratlı railway, Serdar Sözeri, the general director of the Akport Tekirdağ Port Management Inc., has said.
Sözeri said rail and ferry links between Derince and Tekirdağ as well as between Bandırma and Tekirdağ because of the Marmaray Project, which will link Istanbul’s Asian and European sides via an undersea commuter train line. He said, “The rail system of the Marmaray Project uses a special technology, which makes it impossible to use the current railroads. This is why once the construction of the underwater tunnel is completed, the existing railway between Gebze and Halkalı will be dismantled and train travel between Asia and Europe will become impossible. When this happens, Tekirdağ and Derince ports will assume a very important function. Transferring trains traveling from Europe to Asia, and those traveling from Asia to Europe will be carried out via ferryboats. Another project aims to bring trains from Eskişehir to Bandırma via Balıkesir and transfer them on ferries to the Tekirdağ wharf from Bandırma. These projects will be completed this year. Derince will be the central hub in this network.”
Door to Eastern Europe
Sözeri noted that Tekirdağ has a huge potential to become a major transportation hub connecting two continents over the long run, saying the Port of Tekirdağ, Akport, is an important port that links the area to Eastern Europe. He also added that it shares a coast with the Black Sea and it has the advantage of transferring goods in a speedy fashion to countries such as Austria via rail links. He also noted that Tekirdağ remains as the only option for Central Asian countries which are both owners of sources of energy and increasingly important consumer markets for energy products. Sözeri also added that rapidly developing countries of the Black Sea region with their large potential for transit shipping need ports such as Tekirdağ in the area.
Another advantage Tekirdağ has lies in the global realization that smaller vessels are not very economical in container shipping. He said, “This is why ships that are longer than 300are needed. Particularly, vessels from Far East are longer than 300 meters, but vessels of that size are not allowed to pass through the Bosporus. This is why companies need to unload on Aegean and Marmara ports and transfer their cargos to Black Sea.”
Setting up logistics villages
Stating that the according to estimates, the volume in global container shipping is expected grow by 10 times the current volume in 2020, Sözeri said Tekirdağ has a very strong position as a central hub in transfer of cargos and transportation. He also said they were exchanging ideas with local administrators to set up “logistics villages” in Tekirdağ that will help facilitate the transit movement of goods in the city. He said that minimizing risk to the environment was a major concern of both his company and local officials in these projects.