New Asia-Europe road to boost regional growth
December 12, 2013 Category Logistics, Road transport
China, Russia and Kazakhstan are counting on a new road corridor stretching from Jiangsu province to St. Petersburg in Russia to help stimulate regional trade. After nine years of negotiations, the three countries recently reached an agreement on a construction plan for the Asia-Europe road. The length of the new corridor will be 8,445 kilometers-2,233 km of it will be in Russia, 2,787 km in Kazakhstan and 3,425 km in China. The corridor is expected to be completed by 2017, according to China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Transporting goods from China to Europe takes between 15 and 45 days, either through the Suez Canal or the Trans-Siberian Railway. Commodities are usually distributed in containers and first routed through international logistics centers such as Rotterdam, Hamburg or Frankfurt. From these European transportation hubs, Chinese commodities travel a long distance before arriving at their final destinations in Russia or Kazakhstan. The new corridor will become Central Asia’s most important freight artery, with transit times shortened by 10 to 14 days. Freight volume passing through the Kazakhstan portion of the corridor is expected to increase from the current 1 million tons to 3.5 million tons, according to an estimate from Kazakhstan’s Transportation and Communication Ministry. “Building roads can be a tempting package to develop the service industry, logistics, hotels and infrastructure-related businesses. It will also create jobs for small and medium-sized enterprises and large joint ventures such as cement and steel plants in Kazakhstan,” said Hou Hanping, Professor of Logistics Management at Beijing Jiaotong University. About 2,450 km of the existing road in Kazakhstan, built during the Soviet era, will be rebuilt. Half of the new highway in Kazakhstan will have two lanes; the other half, which is near urban, populated areas, will have four. “From a long-term perspective, we are certain that many new towns will be built along the new Asia-Europe transport corridor,” said Lu Chuan, Vice President of XCMG Construction Machinery.
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