Single transport company will be established in EurAsEC soon

By Vladimir Velikhov

At the same time, Belarus GDP could grow by $1bn

The idea of the creation of an integrated transport & logistics company of the Eurasian Economic Community was approved at the session of Heads of Governments of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia in the summer of 2012 in St. Petersburg. Recently it has become known that the integrated transport company in EurAsEC may be formed in the first half of 2014. Such terms were preliminary determined at the meeting of Prime Minister Mikhail Myasnikovich and the President of Russian Railways JSC, Vladimir Yakunin, which was held in the Belarusian government.

The idea of the creation of an integrated transport and logistics company of the Eurasian Economic Community is not just a railway project, Mr. Yakunin considers. We do not have such a scale projects neither in the CIS, nor in EurAsEC. The largest logistician of the world — DHL Company is already showing an interest in it. It is expected that the product created by national railway carriers of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia, will be not only competitive, but also rather profitable for the infrastructure of railways of three states, and also their logistical companies.

“Participants of the project approved projects of the charter and internal documents of integrated transport and logistics company of the Eurasian Economic Community, the draft business plan was also co-ordinated,” Mikhail Myasnikovich noted. “Time has come to enter the phase of decision-making.”

The Belarusian government noted that, thanks to the realisation of this project, it is planned to increase transit of container cargoes by 2021, first of all across the China-EU corridor, to the level of 1.1m containers. As for our country, at the expense of this project Belarus plans to increase transit container traffic by 4.5 times and the volume of turnover of containers at the Brest-Severny station almost sevenfold. Thus the volume of investment in the development of terminal-warehouse infrastructure will make about $25m. The government counted up that cumulative effect from the given project in Belarus will allow for a GDP increase of about $1bn.

Nuances of other strategic projects were also discussed in Minsk. In particular, the large cargo-transport EU route — Belarus-Russia-Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Persian Gulf suggested previously by Mr. Myasnikovich.