Rail services to ensure food security

Today, the Eurasian Agroexpress project is a regular operation that connects China with Southeast Asian countries; this comes as part of the eastern route of the North-South Internation Transport Corridor gaining traction. The project is under ongoing development. All member countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) with whom Russia has direct rail connection are now more or less involved in the project with Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan now onboard.

Bolstering the services

Early last year, the EAEU countries’ government heads supported the EAEU’s plan to include transportation via the North-South ITC to Turkmenistan, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, and India in the joint integration project Eurasian Agroexpress. The volume of agricultural goods transported through the new logistics channel is projected to increase significantly, reaching 150-200 thousand tons by 2025 and potentially reaching 600 thousand tons by 2030.

Turkey has also shown interest in participating in the project. In early 2024, the project directors signed an agreement with Turkish logistics and trading organizations to collaborate and engage in the transportation of food.

Furthermore, trial shipments of Vietnamese goods passing through China have been successfully conducted, and negotiations are underway to facilitate the export of food products and pharmaceuticals. The shipping format with Malaysia and Indonesia was finalized following productive discussions involving the embassies and trade representatives of both countries. The focus was on identifying potential cargo bases. These include seafood, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and palm oil. The planned volumes is expected to reach 35,000 to 40,000 tons per month.

The project aims to increase the accelerated transport volume of agro-industrial products to 1 million tons per year by 2030, while maintaining product quality and ensuring food security for Russia and the EAEU countries.

Boosting the potential

To expand the project and enhance cargo bases in Russia and EAEU countries, it is necessary to build modern agricultural logistics infrastructure, such as agricultural product consolidation warehouses, agricultural hubs and agricultural clusters.

The project directorate, ANO Eurasian Agro-Logistics, is working diligently in this field and has already achieved certain successes.

Last year, the Project Directorate developed methods and established working tools for designing and building agroclusters and hubs in Russia and EAEU countries that act as transport and logistics centers (TLC) or dry ports.

For example, the City of Ufa (the Bashkortostan Republic) is designing a wholesale distribution center (WDC) with the TLC capabilities. A number of agreements have also been signed with regions of the EAEU countries to participate in the project by establishing infrastructural agro-logistic facilities. Market research studies and defining the cargo base for the project’s new routes are currently underway.

At the end of 2023, the first phase of the Uzbek-Russian venture, BMB-NRC Agrologistics Complex, was opened in the Jizzak region of Uzbekistan. As the current plan suggests, this year will see full engagement in coordinating shipments of the Eurasian Agroexpress high-speed railway trains and multimodal transportation for the agricultural products and food project.

The Russian company JSC Slavtrans-Service, in partnership with BMB-NRC Agrologistics, is currently exploring the potential for creating a transportation corridor to facilitate the export of products from agricultural companies in the Moscow region and the import of goods from Uzbekistan. This transportation route has the potential to evolve into a circular supply chain, with frozen meat, confectionery, oil and fat, and dairy products being exported from Russia, and fresh fruits and vegetables, dried fruits, and nuts being imported from Uzbekistan.

Last year, Russia's agro-industrial complex exports, totaling 87%, were directed towards friendly nations. This year, shipments to China increased by 58%, to Egypt by 19% and to India by 56%. Overall, the Russian Federation now exports agricultural and industrial products to a total of 150 countries worldwide.

Sergey Volkov