The Moscow-Beijing train picking up speed

The signing of a major agreement marked the successful conclusion of negotiations between Oleg Belozyorov, General Director of Russian Railways, and Liu Zhenfang, Chairman of the Board of Directors of China Railways State Corporation. The companies’ heads timed their meeting to coincide with the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to China.

The interest of Chinese and Russian companies in working together to develop global transportation corridors as part of the "One Belt, One Road" initiative and Eurasian Economic Union served as the foundation for the agreement.

Cargoes get the green light

The event ended in the signing of an agreement on comprehensive strategic cooperation. The parties agreed to collaborate on the balanced development of national sections of Eurasian ITCs, improving railway infrastructure to boost train speeds and facilitate the smooth passage of future cargo flows.

Particularly, in order to enhance railroads' throughput and capacity, the plan is to upgrade current border crossings on the Russian-Chinese border (Zabaikalsk - Manchuria, Grodekovo - Suifenhe, Nizhneleninskoye - Tongjiang) and the railway infrastructure leading to them.

Plans also involve expediting the construction of a second main track with a 1,435 mm gauge at the Zabaikalsk-Manchuria border crossing, along with enhancing receiving and transshipment capacities at border stations to boost the volume of transferred cargo. Furthermore, the parties agreed to enhance cooperation as part of creating the China-Mongolia-Russia economic corridor.

A second crucial area of collaboration agreed upon between Russian and Chinese railway workers deals with the expansion of refrigerated container transportation of frozen meat and poultry. Under this section of the agreement, the parties committed to active promotion and development of grain cargo transportation from Russia to China through the Zabaikalsk-Manchuria border crossing.

Global scale

The companies aim to boost the advancement of container transportation in global traffic. To this end, they plan on developing measures to improve the rules and regulations governing China-Europe transportation by container unit trains.

The agreement also states the parties' intention to facilitate the transportation of postal items and cross-border e-commerce cargo by rail in the China-Russia and China-Europe routes through regular container unit trains.

Additionally, JSC Russian Railways and SC KZD committed to developing logistics services for multimodal transportation in cooperation with cargo-generating regions and holding companies in China's and Russia's ports.

To simplify and expedite customs and transportation document processing, JSC Russian Railways and SC KZD are enhancing efforts to develop regulatory framework and expedite the signing of a package of agreements that will help transition to electronic document management with digital signatures.

Plans also include expediting the construction of a second main track with a 1,435 mm gauge at the Zabaikalsk-Manchuria border crossing, along with enhancing receiving and transshipment capacities at border stations

Finally, Russian and Chinese companies also intend to cooperate in the fields of science, technology and innovation as well as personnel training. A joint working group will be established, co-chaired by the deputy general directors of JSC Russian Railways and SC KZD, to coordinate interaction between the parties.