Business news

MINSK, 19 May (BelTA) – The first container train will leave the Chinese city of Shenzhen for Belarus on 22 May, the press service of Belarusian Railways told BelTA.

A Belarusian Railways delegation led by Igor Shilov, First Deputy Head of Belarusian Railways, will take part in the ceremony to see off the train in Shenzhen on 22 May. The China Railway Express train will travel from Shenzhen to Minsk (the Kolyadichi railway station). The new project has become possible thanks to tight cooperation between the railway administrations of Belarus, Russia, China, and Kazakhstan as they work out innovative solutions and create a multimodal logistics hub for South China and Eastern Asia. The new project is being implemented within the framework of the One Belt, One Road initiative with a view to bolstering trade relations and connections between exporters and importers in the region. The Shenzhen city administration provides assistance with the project.

Representatives of the Shenzhen city administration, the railway administrations of China, Kazakhstan, and Latvia, and the logistics company DHL will also take part in the train sendoff ceremony. While in China, Igor Shilov is also expected to meet with top officials of the Shenzhen city administration and DHL Company.

Apart from that, for the sake of stepping up cooperation between the railway operators of Belarus and Kazakhstan and for studying development prospects and the experience of implementation of the largest infrastructure projects together with China the Belarusian Railways delegation will visit the Altynkol railway station, the Kazakhstan Railways inland port Khorgos Gateway, and the Chinese-Kazakh international border cooperation center Khorgos, which serve as links between China and Europe and help increase freight traffic along this route.

BelTA has been told that Belarusian Railways considers the development of freight transportation by container trains from and to China as a strategic and most promising area.

Cargoes are transported to and from China via Belarus using fast transit container trains. Cargoes are also transported in accordance with the foreign trade contracts signed by Belarusian industrial enterprises and organizations. In January-April 2017 as many as 65,600 containers full of cargoes were transported between the European Union and China via Belarus using fast container trains, 140% up from the same period of last year.