Development of rail freight from China to the EU: Russia’s opportunities

Abstract

Russia may play a role of transit country when transporting the goods from Asia-Pacific region to European countries, gaining an economic advantage from it. It is important to develop railroad container traffic on China – Eurasian Economic Union – European Union axis. Russian transporters receive an opportunity to increase carriage volumes and seek an additional income, Russian government, in this case, may receive additional tax payments into the budget. In order to increase the number of freight trains with the usage of railroad transit services on 1520mm gauge it is necessary to improve transport and logistics infrastructure. New transport corridor for delivering container freights into Europe through Kaliningrad Region and the use of railroad route through Mongolia are considered to be perspective solutions. Based on the analysis results it was stated that there is a possibility to redeploy existing and perspective container transit volumes on the China-Europe lane through border crossing points Dostyk, Zabaikalsk and Zamyn-Uud. Goods for e-commerce has the greatest importance in the structure of transit freights. The switch of international flow of goods from airplane to rail transportation for the purpose of e-commerce is also another opportunity to increase the volume of transit traffic through Russian territory. It will give benefits as for clients, as for Russian Railroad company. In order to implement these opportunities, it is necessary to solve a set of legal, organizational and technical tasks.

The Role of Multimodal Transportation in Ensuring Sustainable Territorial Development: Review of Risks and Prospects

“…Analysis [52] results show that Russia can play the role of a transit country in the goods transportation from the Asia-Pacific region to Europe, receiving economic benefits from this since there is a redistributing possibility existing and future volumes of container transit from China-Europe through the border crossings, Dostyk, Zabaikalsk and Zamyn-Uud. To realize these opportunities, it is necessary to solve a complex of legal, organizational and technical problems with the help of infrastructure solutions, as well as harmonization of international transport legislation in the field of freight traffic in the China-Europe transportation.…”