At the beginning of this year, Russian Railways planned to increase volumes by 4 times by 2027.
According to Alexei Shilo, Deputy Chairman of Russian Railways, the volume of transportation of transit containers through Russia in 2022 may be reduced by about 25%.
Moreover, if we take the period from January to September, we already see a drop of 17.6%, and it is very likely that it will increase even more by the end of the year.
If in 2021 about 1.1 million transit units (TEU) were transported through the territory of Russia, then this year it is necessary to count on a maximum of 830 thousand TEU, experts say.
It’s all about geopolitics: after the start of events in Ukraine, transit from China to Europe and back has dropped significantly.
Interestingly, at the beginning of the year, Russian Railways announced its plans to increase the volume of such transit by as much as 4 times by 2027.
But now it is highly likely that such plans will not be realized. If we take specifically the China-Europe direction, then over the past segment of 2022, the volume of container traffic decreased by 35%.
At the same time, however, 2021 is a very high base: it is noted that it is a record year for both Soviet and Russian transportation.
Moreover, during 2021 we see an increase in the volume of container transit through Russia by a significant amount: 43% at once.
The overall picture is more positive
If we take not only the China-Europe direction, but take into account everything at once, then the drop in traffic is also present, but much less: by only 3% compared to last year.
For example, in January-September 2022, 4.8 million TEU were transported, which is even more by 0.5% than in the same period last year.
In total, according to the results of the current year, Russian Railways plans to reach the bar of 6.3 million TEU, and this is not so little compared to 2021 (6.5 million).
Experts note that in recent years the volume of container transit through Russia has been steadily growing.
For example, over the past 5 years, it has doubled. At the same time, in financial terms, Russian Railways received a lot from him: up to 2% of all revenue.
China is looking for an alternative
In September, a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was held in Samarkand, where they discussed, among other things, the issue of creating a railway between China, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Earlier, there was also talk about such a route, but there was no active development of it, including so as not to run counter to the economic interests of Russia.
But in the current situation, we can expect more confident steps in this direction.
