China’s Belt & Road Initiative To The Russian Arctic Would Create The World’s Largest Dry Port At Yekaterinburg

The Chinese government and Chinese businesses are interested in creating a new transport corridor that would extend from Yekaterinburg in the Russian Urals to Russia’s Arctic ports at Yamal. This would be a key part of a longer route that would connect China to the Arctic Ocean and the Northern Sea Route.

The interest was initiated during a meeting between the Sverdlovsk Department of Information Policy, and a meeting with Chinese diplomats.

China is interested in investing and implementing a project to create a meridian transport corridor from Yekaterinburg to the Arctic ports of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District. However, to create such a transport corridor, it is necessary at least to launch two transport and logistics centres at Uralsky and Yekaterinburg, which would then become the basis for a large inland (dry) port. It would require the building of a railway to Yamal’s Sabetta port.

Yekaterinburg is a major industrial and logistics hub, Russia’s third largest city, and the capital of Sverdlovsk Oblast. It is a major rail junction, connected to the Trans-Siberian railway, and therefore to China via the Mongolian railway link. The M5 highway also links overland to China with a similar route.

Ruslan Sadikov, of the Sverdlovsk Information Policy Department said in a statement. “Chinese organisations and enterprises are interested in the implementation of the Sukhoi Port project and the related initiative to create a meridional transport corridor from Yekaterinburg to the Arctic ports of Yamal, as stated by the Consul General of the People’s Republic of China in Yekaterinburg, Luo Shixiong, during talks with the Minister of Economy and Territorial Development of the Sverdlovsk Region.”

According to the department, several large transport and logistics centres have already been launched in the Sverdlovsk Region as part of the Dry Port project, including Yekaterinburg-Tovarny, the SeAiTi container terminal and the Uralsky trade centre.

Vyacheslav Yarin, Minister of Sverdlovsk International and Foreign Economic Relations said that “We see great prospects in working with Chinese partners to create a meridional transport corridor that will connect Sukhoi Port with the seaport in the central part of the Northern Sea Route, providing the shortest route to the Arctic ports at Yamal.”

The Sverdlovsk authorities expect that the Dry Port project will become a multimodal link for access not only to the Northern Sea Route and the border with China, but also southwest to the Caspian Sea, thereby ensuring bilateral cargo transit with India, Iran, and Pakistan.

However, in order for the transport corridor to run from Yekaterinburg to Sabetta, it is also necessary to build the railway – known as the Sredneuralsky Latitudinal Passage. According to Alexey Shmykov, the first deputy governor of the region, this section has already been worked out with Russian Railways and is part of the proposed Northern Latitudinal Railway.

In Yekaterinburg, some of the required transport and logistics infrastructure needed to form the basis of a multimodal logistics hub (the dry port) is already in place. The first stage of the Uralsky trade centre was launched in 2022. When it is operating at full capacity, it will be able to receive up to 600,000 TEU per year. To put that into context, the Khorgos Dry Port between Kazakhstan and China handles 540,000 TEU per annum. That is currently the largest inland port in the world.

China has invested US$1.7 trillion in its Belt & Road Initiative, a global project designed to secure supply chains to and from China. Much of this has included the building of road, rail and port infrastructure throughout the world, including Central Asia. The additional intent is to secure supply chains further west into Russia, using Yekaterinburg as a hub with onward reach to the Arctic Ocean and the Caspian Sea. For China, the Arctic route is important not just for the energy sector but also to insert Chinese businesses into the supply chain mechanism and provide cash-flow opportunities via the provision of various logistics services. The Caspian route would provide connectivity to the International North-South Transport Corridor that also provides access to Iran, the Middle East, East Africa and South Asia.