1. As Russia’s transport and logistics industry maintains its foothold in the international market, we take a look at how things are panning out in 2019.
2. Construction has begun on the new highway that will serve as a critical part in the China-Western Europe transport corridor. The new highway, which will stretch from Russia’s border with Kazakhstan to Belarus.
3. Upon completion, this transport corridor is set to be the primary transport channel of the Silk Road Economic Belt, the overland portion of China’s Belt and Road initiative.
4. The highway, once completed, is slated to allow trucks to travel between China and Europe in just eleven days, which would make it vastly quicker than the 30-50 days by sea and 15 days by rail alternatives.
5. As well as the large sum it’ll cost to develop the China-Western Europe transport corridor, we’ll also see the Russian government investing a reported 6.3 trillion roubles into a six-year plan to modernise the country’s highways, airports, railways, ports and other transport infrastructure.
6. The latest figures detail loading on Russia’s railway network in August of this year as 0.2% more than the same month in 2018 – amounting to 109 million tonnes.
7. While freight turnover in August 2019 decreased by 2.1% compared to the same period last year, from January to the end of August 2019, freight turnover rose 0.9% to 1,734.1 million tonnes-km.
8. Railways carried items including coal, oil and petroleum products, chemical and mineral fertilisers, timber, grain, ferrous metals and construction materials.
9. In the first eight months of 2019, the seaports of Russia handled 556.3 million tonnes of cargo, which is a 2.9% increase, year-on-year.
10. If we break this down into transhipment of dry and liquid cargo, dry cargo totalled 248.0 million tonnes (down 4.2%). This included:
• 116.9 million tonnes of coal (+8.4%)
• 24.0 million tonnes of grain (-35.3%)
• 37.4 million tonnes of containerized cargo (+6.1%)
• 18.2 million tonnes of ferrous metal (-11.5%)
• 12.0 million tonnes of mineral fertilizers (+2.1%)
• 5.9 million tonnes of ore (+26.2%)
• 3.3 million tonnes of timber (-9.4%)
11. Liquid bulk cargo totalled 308.3 million tonnes (up 9.5%), which included:
• 185.5 million tonnes of crude oil (+11.4%)
• 96.8 million tonnes of oil products (-0.7%)
• 21.7 million tonnes of liquefied gas (up 1.6 times)
12. While operators of seaports in the Azov-Black Sea Basin saw a decrease in cargo traffic by 7.7% with 168.5 million tonnes being handled, other territories faired more positively. There were cargo increases in the following:
• Artic Basin seaport operators handled 69.8 million tonnes – 19.4% growth
• Baltic Basic seaport operators handled 172.0 million tonnes – 5.8% growth
• Caspian Basin seaport operators handled 4.8 million tonnes – 46.7% growth
• Far East Basin seaport operators handled 141.2 million tonnes – 5.5% growth
(Source: http://www.transrussia.ru/Articles/the-state-of-transport-and-logistics-in-russi)
