In January-June 2016, Belarusian Railways enhanced the volume of container transportation in the Chinese direction by 2.5 times in comparison with the same period of last year, Alexander Yevsyuk, First Deputy Head of the Freight Operations and Foreign Economic Operations Service of Belarusian Railways, said.
“The Chinese direction is the most promising transit one. We participate in the implementation of the Chinese initiative aimed at building an economic belt of the Silk Road. The shortest way from China to Europe by land goes through Belarus. Trains are employed now. This year 36,000 containers have been transported, 2.5 times up from last year,” Alexander Yevsyuk noted, BelTa news agency informs.
Alexander Yevsyuk stated that freight hauling is the main generator of revenue and the main source of hard currency for Belarusian Railways. “If we look at performance figures in H1 2016, they will be slightly worse than last year. We transported about 60 million tonnes of freight or 94.4% as against last year,” he said. In his words, the transport volumes are affected by the unstable global economic situation as a whole as well as the situation in neighboring countries and trading partners. “Russia accounts for some 96% of the transit volume. Those are exports and imports. Since the situation is complicated in Russia, mutual sanctions are in effect, the industrial sector is not growing, our transit operations are affected. It is necessary to look for new routes, to diversify operation areas,” Yevsyuk summed up.
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