ERBIL, Kurdistan Region, Iraq – Turkish Minister of Trade Omer Bolat stated on Tuesday that the completion of the Development Road project will facilitate the intercontinental transport of goods in eight to ten days.

“Loads will be transported from the south to the east to the west to Europe, and from Europe to the west to the south and east to Asia, the Gulf, and the Middle East in eight to ten days” via the Development Road after the project is completed, Bolat told The New Region on Tuesday, adding that upon its completion, “trade will increase.”

The Development Road is a massive, multi-billion-dollar project that entails the expansion of railways, roads, and ports, shortening travel time between Asia and Europe and linking the Grand Faw Port in southern Iraq to the Turkish border. The project is set to create hundreds of thousands of jobs and enhance Iraq’s geopolitical status.

He said that the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE’s) port management authorities had told him that they had “unloaded cargo from Izmir to the port of Umm Qasr, Iraq, by road, in eight days,” a process that would have otherwise taken 28 days, he noted.

“And I said, in that case, the Development Road has already started working,” Bolat added.

Turkish Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Abdulkadir Uraloglu on Wednesday stressed the importance of the Development Road considering recent regional developments, namely the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, that pose difficulties to shipments  and engender longer transport routes.

Uraloglu told reporters in Berlin that shipments coming through the Suez Canal and the Persian Gulf have decreased to “around 30 percent,” noting that “what used to come from the Suez Canal in 35 days, now comes in 45 days [through the Cape of Good Hope].”

The Iraqi Supreme Committee for the Development Road project in late March approved the establishment of a “special company” to oversee the implementation of the multi-billion dollar project, in addition to the approval of “interim governance instructions” for regulating the relationship between Iraq and Turkey in regards to the grand project.

The architectural plan for the Development Road is structured in three phases, with phase one projected to be completed by 2028, while the second and third phases are expected to finish in 2033 and 2050 respectively.

The initial investment for the project is estimated at nearly $20 billion, with projected annual profits reaching approximately five billion dollars.