The Eurasian Intergovernmental Council adopted a disposition to support implementing the joint project of the Eurasian Economic Union countries on performing expedite rail and multimodal transportation "Eurasian Agroexpress". The project is intended to increase mutual supplies and exports of agricultural and food products as well as diversification thereof.
"At first, regular shipments outside the EAEU will be organized in two directions - to China and Uzbekistan and back. Later on, the supply routes can be expanded to other countries of the Asian and European regions", noted Andrey Slepnev, Minister in charge of Trade of the Eurasian Economic Commission. The regularity of shipments will enable forming competitive tariffs for sea freight as well as reducing the time of goods delivery (up to 10-14 days to China and 4-7 days to Uzbekistan). Besides, it is planned to create the entire infrastructure required - a well-established logistics supply chain".
The Minister has explained that this entails supplying fat and oil, dairy, meat, fruit and vegetable and finished food as well as other food products with emphasis on marginal goods.
Implementing the joint project provides for a possibility to launch two full-length container trains per week en route the Republic of Belarus - the Russian Federation - the Kyrgyz Republic - the Republic of Kazakhstan - the People's Republic of China, including trains with refrigerated containers for frozen products. Therefore, traffic volume toward China may amount to about 10 ths tons every month.
The following companies confirmed their participation in the joint project: Bremino Group, LLC (the Republic of Belarus), KTZ Express, OJSC (the Republic of Kazakhstan), State Enterprise National Company Kyrgyz Temir Zholu (the Kyrgyz Republic), RZD Logistics, OJSC (the Russian Federation) and Slavtrans-Service, OJSC (the Russian Federation). Autonomous Non-Profit Organization "Eurasian Agrologistics" was created to perform the coordinator’s functions.
For reference
In 2019, the Agroexpress project involving regular container transportation of agricultural products by rail to China was launched in the Russian Federation. Since 2021, the project has been implemented en route Russia – Uzbekistan as well.