MOSCOW, 2 February (BelTA) - The countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) will continue the implementation of the joint project for accelerated rail and multimodal transportation of agricultural and food products Eurasian Agroexpress, the Eurasian Economic Commission (ECC) told BelTA following the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council meeting in Almaty, Kazakhstan on 2 February 2.
According to the report considered at the Almaty meeting, thanks to the Eurasian Agroexpress projects, exports from the EAEU countries of high-margin food increased by 6% in 2023. “The biggest export growth was posted in grain legumes (up more than 4 times), and in oil and fat products (up about 20%),” member of the Board (Minister) for Trade of the EEC Andrey Slepnev said.
At present, China is the main direction of transportation under the project. Last year, container train deliveries were also conducted along the eastern branch of the International North-South Transport Corridor to India and Iran. A pilot delivery was carried out to Uzbekistan, and work is underway to ship products to the UAE.
“We plan to intensify efforts to remove restrictions on access to promising markets for quality food produced in the union. We carry out this work on a systematic basis, and one of the results was the resumption of direct railroad deliveries of products to China, the access to which had been restricted by China due to anti-COVID measures,” Andrey Slepnev said. “We have relaunched the shipments of meat, poultry, milk and confectionery via Dostyk-Alashankou. The upcoming opening of at least three more border crossings will let our countries increase supplies significantly, which is what we are aiming for.”
“Following the consideration of the report, the heads of government of the EAEU countries expressed support for the continuation of the project, and confirmed the priority of expanding the areas and increasing the amount of exported goods,” the EEC added.
The initiative to implement a joint project Eurasian Agroexpress in order to develop regular mutual deliveries of agricultural products and food, as well as exports in the Asian direction was adopted by the order of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council on 25 February 2022. The total transportation volumes by Eurasian Agroexpress in 2023 exceeded 450,000 tonnes. The key cargoes are oil and fat, fruit and vegetables, canned goods, grain legumes, chicken and beef meat.
