Русский
The Yuzhnouralsky Dry Port and Rusagrotek LLC have sent the first container train with agricultural products from Chelyabinsk to Zabaikalsk, one of the China border crossings. The train will proceed to Chengdu in China’s Sichuan Province, with the total travel time estimated at 14 days. The train consists of 70 forty-foot containers.
The route was launched as due to an increase in the export shipments of Russian agricultural products, with Yuzhnouralsky Dry Port expecting to send 2-3 container trains to Chengdu monthly. The route comes in addition to last week’s Chelyabinsk-Mumbai Agroexpress freight chain, which we reported on last week.
The Yuzhnouralsky Transport and Logistics Center (TLC) is part of the Russian Transport Ministry’s project for the creation of a network of Transport and Logistics Centers (TLC). Currently, the TLC includes a Class A warehouse complex with an area of more than 60,000 sq. m, a container terminal with a capacity of about 10,000 TEU, as well as railway and utility infrastructure facilities.
Russian Railways began sending container trains along the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) in the spring of 2023 from the South Ural Railway Chelyabinsk-Gruzovaya station, and then, in summer, from Formachevo station, located next to the Yuzhnouralsky TLC, whose infrastructure is used for trans-shipping containers from road transport to rail.
Russia’s FESCO Transport have also launched a railway container service on the Chelyabinsk- Vladivostok route, which also makes use of the Yuzhnouralsky TLC.
Russia’s national logistics and supply chain infrastructure is being repositioned to service east rather than west, in light of the long-term view that trade relations with Europe are unlikely to recover anytime soon. Russia’s trade with Asia has grown exponentially since Europe introduced sanctions.
Further Reading
Russia-China 2024 Trade & Development
The Russia-China trade and development dynamics are comprehensively featured in our 2024 Russia’s Pivot to Asia guide, which is a complimentary download and can be accessed in English here and in Russian here.
