The Sino-Russian port is blocked! 700 trucks lined up for 10 kilometers to clear customs, and the port has started 24-hour working mode
700 trucks line up for customs clearance on the Sino-Russian border
A few days ago, according to the Russian report, at the Zabaikalsk border checkpoint, the queue of trucks waiting to pass the port is about 7 to 10 kilometers long, and the truck drivers can only drive about 90-100 meters forward every day, and the waiting time can even be as long as weeks. Due to the serious congestion, conflicts occurred between drivers from time to time. On the 15th, Radkin, director of the Far East Bureau of the Russian Federal Customs Agency, said that this spring, the Russian-Chinese border port has been revitalized, and Russia has noticed a substantial increase in the trade volume between the two countries through this port. According to him, recently, about 340 to 350 vehicles passed through the port every day, and there were about 700 vehicles queuing up at the port on the morning of the 15th.
As China optimizes its policies for the prevention and control of Covid-19 and the trade exchanges between China and Russia become more frequent, the volume of freight on the border between the two countries continues to increase. Russia Today reported that the Russian Federal Customs Agency released data showing that since the beginning of this year, the freight volume between Russia and China through the Far East highway port has increased by nearly 50% year-on-year, exceeding 75,000 vehicles. With the surge in freight volume between the two countries, the traffic capacity of border ports in the Russian Far East has been tested, and the Zabaikalsk highway port is a typical case. The Transbaikalsk-Manzhouli International Highway Port resumed customs clearance in January this year. The port is the largest road port on the border between Russia and China. According to the news released by the Russian Consulate General in Harbin at the end of April this year, in the first quarter of this year, the freight volume of the Zabaikalsk-Manzhouli railway and road ports reached 5 million tons, an increase of more than 60% compared with the same period in 2022.
On the 15th, Xu Poling, director of the Russian Economic Research Office of the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that after the Covid-19 ended, heavy trucks queued up at the Sino-Russian border ports. There are differences in working hours and other reasons. Xu said that China-Russia trade is growing rapidly, but in comparison, the connection between the infrastructure between the two sides is not balanced, and Russia’s construction lags behind seriously.
Freight volume at Russian border ports increased by about 70%
Recently, Anton Kozlov, head of the foreign projects and international cooperation department of the Russian National Railway Transport Company, said that Russian Railways hopes to resume passenger railway transportation with China in the future. At the same time, everything is going well in the field of freight transport between Russia and China, and in the first quarter of 2023, the volume of goods transported through the Sino-Russian border crossings has increased by about 70%. On the 16th, according to the Russian Satellite News Agency, Kozlov pointed out at the 3rd Central Asia Conference of the Valdai Club on the theme of Russia and Central Asia: Connecting the Changing World that there is currently no passenger transport between Russia and China.
In response to a question on when passenger rail traffic between Russia and China could resume, Kozlov said: “I have no information on when passenger traffic will resume. But, I think, there have been so many years of traffic, and Passenger traffic with those countries whose trains were canceled due to the Covid-19 has resumed, and it will be the same with us sooner or later. But I can’t say the exact time.” At the same time, he pointed out that in terms of cargo transportation, everything is fine for them.
