Nearly 450,000 containers have been transported from China to Europe through Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus over the past eight months. According to experts of the Eurasian Development Bank, this became possible thanks to the coordinated actions of the countries. The main advantage of such transport logistics is the shortened delivery time of cargoes. The goods can arrive in Europe in just two weeks. Meanwhile, it takes more than a month to deliver it by sea. The most developed transport corridor is the Central Eurasian that passes through Kazakhstan. According to the bank’s forecasts, this route will continue to be on top. In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, EAEU countries managed to increase the volume of railway transportations by more than 60 percent. Experts believe that in the future, the annual flow through the EAEU may grow at least threefold. The combined revenues of the partner countries’ railways could reach US$10 billion.
“It is necessary to update and increase the fleet of fitting platforms, which will help to increase the transit container traffic. In general, there is one recommendation of a general nature for the EAEU member countries. The countries do not need a megaproject, the second Trans-Siberian Railway. To expand the bottlenecks of the transport infrastructure is enough. This is, first of all, the construction of additional railway lines, the electrification of sections of the railway lines, the clearing of difficulties at loading points in border areas and the introduction of new digital solutions,” said Taras Tsukarev, Head of EDB Centre for Integration Studies.
