Business news

The Belarusian Railways outlined areas of international cooperation for 2017. The company will pay attention to hauls between China and Belarus and cooperation with residents of the China-Belarus Industrial Park Great Stone in the transport and logistics sector, and the organization of the international traffic. The Belarusian Railways will also be developing cooperation with Chinese provinces in shipping by high-speed container trains.

A special focus will be on cooperation with the railways of Russia, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, and Estonia. The goal is to attract additional freight traffic, further develop passenger transportation, follow a coordinated and competitive tariff policy, apply electronic legal traffic documents in international transportation, coordinate joint action aimed at the development of near-border railway infrastructure.

The plans also include the completion of the project to electrify the railways on the route Molodechno-state border-Naujoji Vilnia and the organization of passenger transportation between Minsk and Vilnius with the use of modern electric trains.

The Belarusian Railways offices in Russia, Kazakhstan and Poland will cooperate with railways, freight owners, rolling stock operators, forwarders and shipping agents to a view to attract additional traffic.

The Belarusian Railways will organize a number of events held by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Transport Communications Ministry as part of Belarus’ presidency in the Central-European Initiative in 2017. There are plans to take part in the events of the Belarusian Transportation Week, hold themed roundtables in Moscow and Kaliningrad, as well as an international conference in Belarus to highlight the matters pertaining to the market of railway services, logistics, forwarding and tariffs, and also an international conference to mark the 155^th anniversary of the Belarusian Railways.

The Belarusian Railways will take an active part in the activity of the CIS Rail Transport Council, the Organization for Cooperation of Railways (OSJD), the International Union of Railways, the international association Coordination Council on Trans-Siberian Transportation in promoting competitive ability of railways, improving international freight and passenger traffic. In April 2017 Minsk will host the 32^nd meeting of the Conference of Director Generals (Authorized Representatives) of OSJD Railways.

The legal framework of the international freight and passenger traffic will be improved as well.