Business news

MINSK, 25 May (BelTA) - Belarusian Railways presented its transit potential in the Hague (Netherlands) at the conference “Belarus-Netherlands: Railway Business, Logistics, Prospects and Solutions”, BelTA learned from the press center of the Belarusian Railways.

The participants discussed new approaches to cooperation in the market of transport services, exchanged experiences and ideas on how to make transport business more efficient.

Belarusian Ambassador to the Netherlands Nikolai Borisevich noted that the Netherlands is traditionally among the top ten trading and economic and investment partners of Belarus. In 2017 the Netherlands ranked 5th by the volume of Belarusian export (after Russia, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and Germany) and 6th by volume of attracted foreign direct investment (after Russia, Latvia, Cyprus, China and Poland). Nikolai Borisevich stressed that such high export requires good transportation support and expressed confidence that the participation in the conference will help build a constructive dialogue for the development of cooperation in the field of railway traffic both in bilateral and multilateral formats.

First Deputy Head of Belarusian Railways Igor Shilov presented the company’s capabilities, key projects and prospects at the conference. He said that the cargo transportation by Belarusian Railways to the EU countries was 52 million tonnes in 2017. The share of the Netherlands was 12%. Container transportation along the route Tilburg-Minsk-Chengdu and back was called as an example of effective logistics solution for the development of railway business. In 2017 cargo transportation rose three times over 2016 and two times in Q1 2018 as against the same period of 2017. The share of the Tilburg-Chengdu train service has already reached 7% and is growing rapidly.

A new transportation route from Chongqing to Tilburg via the Netherlands was launched in April this year. Participants of the conference were invited to take into account the new route when working out new logistics routes.

Belarusian Railways considers the development of container transportation in communication with China as a strategic and most promising area. Belarusian Railways is a party to the China-Europe freight rail services agreement signed by the rail operators of China, Germany, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Poland and Russia.

In 2017, the volume of container traffic through Belarus doubled in comparison with 2016. In 2018, this figure is projected at 340,000 TEU containers, an increase of 25%.

Belarusian Railways aims to create conditions for expanding the geography of container trains and intensifying the development of cargo flows from the EU countries to China. The Belarusian Railways has a sufficient traffic capacity at the Belarusian-Polish border crossings. The Belarusian Railways focuses on its transit potential and also the development of cargo transportation for Belarusian export-oriented enterprises.

In order to create optimal conditions for the shipment of goods through Belarus and ensure the export of Belarusian products, the Belarusian Railways is working to expand transportation opportunities with the help of the container hub at the Kolyadichi station of the transport and logistics center Minsk. One of the promising areas is to organize multimodal transportation with the use of the Belarusian Railways infrastructure and the subsequent reshipment on road transport for the delivery to the EU.

The conference was also attended by head of the group of experts on railway transport at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management of the Netherlands Hinne Groot, Belintertrans - Transport and Logistics Center, the official forwarder of the Belarusian Railways, its EU branch Belintertrans Germany, and also representatives of the business community.