New points on the export map

By sea, by rail, by motor transport — how Belarusian goods are delivered to foreign buyers today

Despite the West’s incessant pressure on Belarus, the country’s economy continues to develop dynamically and Belarusian products are in demand in the foreign market. According to the National Bank, Belarus’ foreign trade turnover of goods and services in January-July 2024 increased by 4.6 percent compared to the same period in 2023 to reach $56.2 billion in equivalent. Sales to Asia and Africa have grown significantly. Experts note that this is the result of timely measures taken at the level of the country’s leadership and prompt logistics restructuring.

Route has been rebuilt 

Geopolitical processes and sanctions restrictions have led to the rupture of traditional supply chains and the reformatting of foreign trade logistics, which has become a new growth point for Belarus and Russia. The established transport and logistics flows in Eurasia have been radically restructured and re-orientated, mainly to the east and south. Today, the diversification of trade and transport logistics flows takes place in the direction of friendly countries — to the east and southeast, as well as along the International North–South transport corridor, which uses the infrastructure of the Caspian ports of the Russian Federation and the Islamic Republic of Iran. This transport corridor enables logistics companies to arrange cargo transportation to the countries of Southeast Asia, the Arabian Peninsula and the African continent. 

“Thanks to close co-operation with partner countries, including the Russian Federation, China, Kazakhstan, Iran, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, a new transport and logistics framework for the transportation of Belarusian export goods has been formed.

A lot of work has been done to re-orientate the export flow and fulfil the tasks set by the Government. First of all, the necessary regulatory framework has been created to ensure the transportation of foreign trade goods by rail,” noted Aleksei Lyakhnovich, Belarus’ Transport and Communications Minister. 
Incidentally, the Belarusian Railway alone has already transported one million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containers since the beginning of the year. For clarity: in 2023, a similar result was achieved only in December. This year, Belarusian goods have already been exported by rail to more than 90 countries around the world. Compared to 2023, countries such as Senegal, Peru, Mali, Uruguay, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Benin, Tunisia, Algeria and more have been added to the export map. 
The export of Belarusian products through the Russian port infrastructure increased by 10 percent in eight months compared to the same period last year. Today, 14 Russian ports are involved in transshipment of Belarusian goods. Belarus continues to build logistics using the infrastructure of the International North–South transport corridor while the necessary conditions are being created to ramp up the volume of export supplies of domestic enterprises’ products by containers to the Chinese market. In April 2024, Belarus joined the international transport corridor ‘Russia – Kazakhstan – Uzbekistan – Afghanistan – Pakistan’.

Over 230m tonnes of cargo have passed through the terminals of the Minsk branch of Beltamozhservice in 20 years       belta

Eurasian vector

Within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), consistent work is ongoing to develop the Eurasian transport corridors and infrastructure to increase traffic capacity. Global changes have opened up new opportunities for the development of the transport industry while the value of the common market for transport services and logistics in the integration association has increased many times.
A digital environment for business processes is being formed, with the work on the creation of a unified transit system and a mechanism for transportation traceability, as well as control of cargo movement using navigation seals entering the final phase. The legal foundations for access to the inland waterways of the union have been laid, and an agreement on navigation has been signed. 
“As part of the transit potential development, an agreement on the requirements for the masses and dimensions of motor vehicles carrying out transportation along the Eurasian transport corridors is being prepared for signing,” stated Arzybek Kozhoshev, EEC Minister in charge of Energy and Infrastructure. “A new stage in the implementation of transport policy based on the roadmap for 2024-2026, which is planned to be approved at the level of heads of government, is coming. Our task is to ensure that the upcoming period is a logical continuation of the current work. There is a lot of work to be done to fulfil the transit potential of the Eurasian countries. Measures will be required to create a competitive environment in the transport services market, determine the legal regulation of transportation conditions, co-ordinate efforts on the joint development of infrastructure for international transport corridors, and identify financing mechanisms for infrastructure projects.” 

Union State direction

In the current geopolitical and geo-economic conditions, Russia has become a key partner of Belarus in logistics, and not only. Significant work has been done to set up new logistics relying on the transport infrastructure of the neighbouring country. 
“The volume of joint cargo transportation by Belarusian and Russian companies by rail in 2023 is estimated at 46 million tonnes. This is 30 percent more than in 2022,” pointed out Dmitry Zverev, Russia’s Deputy Minister of Transport. “It is expected that in 2024 Belarus will transfer about 4.3 million tonnes of petroleum products alone through Russian ports. At the same time, the volume of other Belarusian cargoes declared for transshipment is 8.6 million tonnes. As of September 1st, Russian ports have already shipped seven million tonnes of cargo for export. For comparison: there were no such figures last year. We started from scratch, built our railway system, road transport and established coherent work in multimodal communication. The further development of our transport complexes has quite ambitious plans.”  
By the way, in 2024, the first shipments went through the International North–South transport corridor. Belarusian and Russian transport companies have discovered new markets in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is not about capturing the transport markets of these countries but about redistributing the traffic volume to them.  

Loading containers to China and Beltamozhservice warehouses, Minsk        Aleksey Vyazmitinov  

To the point

EDB analysts have estimated the traffic volume on the eastern route of the International North–South transport corridor last year at 1.6 million tonnes. Of these, 1.1 million tonnes were transported by rail. The average annual traffic growth rate over the past three years has been 52 percent. The year 2022 marked the launch of the first regular container service. Bulk oil cargo transportation was successfully tested last year, and coal container transportation to India — in June 2024. The use of competitive railway tariff rates contributes to the positive dynamics of transportation. “The eastern route of the International North–South transport corridor is the main meridional traffic artery in Central Asia. We expect its share to grow from 10 to 16 percent by 2030 thanks to new container services and the implementation of the Chelyabinsk – Bolashak – Iran freight traffic initiative,” shared Evgeny Vinokurov, Deputy Chairman of the Board and Chief Economist at the EDB. 
According to the forecasts of EDB analysts, the volume of rail freight transportation along the eastern route of the International North–South transport corridor may grow by 4.5 times and amount to five million tonnes by 2030. The corridor development will be facilitated by the modernisation and electrification of railway lines, improved border crossings, co-ordinated tariff policy, creation of an end-to-end logistics operator, digitalisation of transport documents and procedures.

By Vladislav Sychevich