Russia turns potential into account in the Eurasian Platform

Since its founding, eight years ago, RZD, the Russian rail company, has moved an astonishing 10.4 billion tonnes of cargo. The company has gradually seen its market share grow, standing at 42.4% of all rail freight shipped in the country so far.
However, the year 2009 proved to be a resilience test for Russian Railways, as because of the decline in freight transport, earnings fell to a certain extent. By the end of the year, the group managed to substantially reduce the size of its operational spending, by 8.2% to around EUR 25 Billion”, explained Russian Railways Senior Vice President Vadim Mikhailov, referring to the severe recession which affected all logistics sectors.
Russia has proved that it knows to take advantage of the strategic importance that transport has in the Eurasian platform.
The group has been in talks with SNCF regarding both passenger and freight ser-vices, the parties announced readiness to cooperate in developing goods transport and terminals as part of the Europe – Asia transport corridor, and their intention of improving standards, to attract larger freight volumes.
One of the main goals set out in the Strategy for Developing Rail Transport in Russia up to 2030 is therefore deep integration into the Eurasian transport system. To reach this objective, RZD will seek to  to increase the role of the Russian rail network on the global market for transport services, especially in Eurasia and to strengthen Russian Railways’ competitiveness compared to alternative forms of transport and foreign shipment companies.
A regular container train service has been launched on the China – Europe – China route in 2010 in order  to attract additional container freight. TransContainer, a partially privatised RZD subsidiary, is involved in this project as an operator, providing container transport services on the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian rail networks.
On the other hand, the Trans-Eurasia Logistics Company (a joint venture between Deutsche Bahn Mobility, Polzug and Kombiferker) is continuing its work organising container freight services on international routes. Since June 2010, the joint venture has been working to provide regular container freight services between Duisburg (Germany) and Moscow.
The shortest route between the European Union and Southeast Asia (a region which produces up to 70% of the world’s GDP) is through Russia.
Therefore, Russian Railways said they were planning to run a demonstration train between Hasan in Russia and Rajin in North Korea in October this year. The project aims to reconstruct an existing section of the railway, the Port of Rajin cargo terminal, and the subsequent use of this infrastructure for transit, with access to the Trans-Siberian Railway.

[ by Elena Ilie ]
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