Kazakhstan wants to become a railway freight transport hub to facilitate the connection between China and Europe, hoping that the route inaugurated last year, the 293km long Zhetygen – Korgas, bordering China, would become the preferred route of the customers performing trade on the two continents. The Kazakh country wants to become an alternative to the only railway route which currently provides a rail freight transport link in the Eurasian platform.
Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ), the Kazakh national railway company, estimated that the cargo transiting its territory will amount to 35 million metric tonnes by 2020 and then even to 50 million metric tonnes.
One of the many attempts to revive railway freight transport in the Eurasian platform pertains to Russian Railways Logistics which, together with its subsidiary YuXinOu (Chongqing) Logistics, launched at the end of October 2012 the first container train between China and Europe using the single consignment note CIM/SMGS. Thus, trains leave Chongqing (China) and cross Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, and Poland to Duisburg (Germany). The network passes through vast and poorly inhabited regions of the six countries, has about 11,000 km and represents a new and modern Silk Road…on railways.
Centuries ago the caravans used to bring fine silk and spices from Asia to the West and today trains carry electronic products and computer elements. Transport takes 19 days.
“The introduction of the single CIM/SMGS consignment note was the result of two years of efforts from the management of infrastructure companies in the countries transited by this train”, declared Pavel Sokolov, President of Russian Railways Logistics.
Kaztransservice (Kazakhstan) and Belintertrans (Belarus) companies have participated in this project as transport partners of Russian Railways Logistics.
Most of the governments, both European and those on the Central Asian platform, are trying to encourage the development of railway freight transport mainly due to the low level of pollution and reduced transport costs. However, we cannot but admit that the main disadvantage of this transport type is the lack of flexibility, but also the presence of the physical and non-physical barriers which prevented the traffic of freight on railways along the international borders.
But the establishment of railway freight dedicated routes in the Eurasian platform is intended to eliminate at least the administrative barriers in order to emphasize the advantages of railway compared to maritime routes on the long-distance.
The new political strategies refer to a more connected Eurasian platform through railway freight transport. Thus, whether we talk about the Trans-Siberian Network, the Trans-Asian Railway Network, the North-South Corridor (Russia-Iran and then to India), the new (Iron) Silk Road or the recently inaugurated routes from Germany to Russia and then China, these are just few of the attempts of recovering and, at the same time, consolidating the position of long-distance freight transport in order to underline its advantages compared to maritime transport by relying on reduced travel times.
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