MINSK, 16 January (BelTA) – In 2019 Belarusian Railways increased the overall volume of container shipping by 15%, BelTA has learned.
According to the source, as many as 732,900 containers in twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) terms were transported by Belarusian railways in 2019 or 115% as against 2018. Over 500,000 containers in TEU terms (108.7% as against 2018) were transported in transit across Belarus. The amount of containers transported between China and Europe via Belarus increased and totaled 338,500 TEUs in 2019.
In 2019 Belarusian Railways implemented a number of measures to make freight transportation more effective. Efforts were poured into improving the planning of container trains, developing the infrastructure and information support as part of agreements signed with the railways of China, Germany, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Poland, and Russia. Systemic work was also done to enable attractive conditions for increasing the volume of transportation of Belarusian exports to China. In 2019 the export of Belarusian merchandise in containers rose by 30% to 97,600 TEUs.
The main projects implemented in 2019 included the shipment of dairy products by ZAO Meat & Dairy Company to China and the transportation of woodworking products by container trains to the city of Chongqing, China. Apart from that, Belarusian Railways enabled container train service for transporting Belarusian forestry industry exports to Romania via Ukraine.
At present Belarusian Railways believes the development of joint projects together with resident companies of the China-Belarus industrial park Great Stone to be a promising area of work.
