Business news

MINSK, 21 June (BelTA) – The first container freight train from the city of Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei Province in China’s north, has arrived at the Kolyadichi terminal of the Belarusian transport and forwarding company Belintertrans – Transport-Logistics Center (BTLC) of Belarusian Railways, BelTA has learned.

The freight train travelled for about 9,500km over the course of 15 days. It brought 38 containers with industrial goods. Their recipients will take some of them right at the railway station while the rest will be delivered by trucks all over Belarus. The China-Belarus industrial park Great Stone is one of the recipients. Such trains are expected to travel from China to Belarus 3-4 times per month and from Belarus to China twice a month.

Hebei Province will be the 13^th Chinese province BTLC Company cooperates with in delivering container freight. BTLC Company Director General Yevgeny Usenkov noted: “Business relations between Belarusian and Chinese commercial entities are evolving. Our job is to offer an optimal logistics scheme to minimize the cost of freight transportation.”

Yevgeny Usenkov also talked about prospects of starting transporting freight from Hebei Province to Western Europe via Belarus. “Today we received cargoes of Belarusian recipients but the transport and logistics terminal Kolyadichi is an international container hub, from which cargoes are shipped to the CIS states, Western Europe, Baltic states, and Scandinavian countries,” said the executive. “Freight transportation by rail costs ten times less than transportation by air. Besides, delivering freight from China by land is four times faster than shipping freight by sea via the Klaipeda port.”

The representative of the Shijiazhuang city administration Xing Guohui stressed that the establishment of new routes for transporting container cargoes helps enhance trade and economic cooperation between countries and implement the Belt and Road initiative.

The state-owned company BTLC is one of Belarus’ leading forwarding companies. It offers modern transportation and logistics services. Freight transportation by container trains is one of the most actively developing branches of the company’s business.