EAEU authorities are discussing the construction of infrastructure and the removal of “soft” barriers for logistics corridors

In 2022, the EAEU countries significantly increased their exports to Russia, which increased the demand for alternative transport routes, including the western branch of the North-South corridor and transit routes through Kazakhstan. However, a further increase in cargo traffic will require not only the construction of infrastructure, but also the removal of “soft” barriers – restrictions on customs and disagreements in country regulation, said the participants of the Eurasian Congress held at the end of last week in Sochi.

The imposition of sanctions led to a significant increase in the volume of trade between Russia and the EAEU countries – in total, turnover with the union increased by 22% in 2022, the FCS reported earlier. At the same time, export deliveries of some countries increased significantly. Thus, Armenia’s exports increased by 77.7% last year, including almost three times to the countries of the Union, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at the plenary session of the Eurasian Congress. The country’s GDP last year increased by 12.6%, which also became a record among the countries that are the closest neighbors of the Russian Federation.

The restructuring of trade routes affects countries in different ways: for example, Prime Minister of Belarus Roman Golovchenko said at the session that a quarter of the Belarusian economy suffered from sanctions (this is also due to the fact that the share of exports in the country’s GDP exceeds 60%), but “The actual increase in trade with the EAEU evened out the drop in exports to other countries, and export flows were directed to Russian ports.” The export of Kyrgyzstan to the EAEU countries increased by more than 80% last year.

In Kazakhstan, in addition to the growth of trade, they also count on an increase in the transit of goods through the country: “We see a significant potential of the North-South corridor in conjunction with the Trans-Caspian international transport route. The seaports of Kazakhstan Aktau and Kuryk, as well as the international center for cross-border cooperation Khorgos, can serve as an additional outlet for the EAEU countries to world markets,” Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov said.

According to the EDB, transit traffic through Kazakhstan to China has already increased by 15% last year, and by 33% in the four months since the beginning of 2023. Along the Trans-Caspian (“middle”) corridor connecting China and Europe through Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, deliveries last year increased by 2.5 times, but only up to 1.5 million tons (including against the backdrop of the refusal of European companies from transit on Russian railways). At the same time, less than 1 million tons are transported by road in the south of the Caspian through Turkmenistan and Iran annually, the bank estimates.

Deliveries along the North-South corridor have grown by 54% since the beginning of the year, the route involves bypassing the Caspian from the west (through Azerbaijan and Iran) or from the east (through Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan). “There are already real trucks that have arrived from Russia to Iranian ports in the Indian Ocean. Now these routes are being analyzed, in particular, from the point of view of wasting time, for example, at border crossings, ”Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin told Kommersant. At the same time, to finance the construction of roads, it is necessary to attract private investment – the budget, according to the official, “in its pure form, of course, is not enough.” However, participation in private money projects will require a change in national regulation and its harmonization, in particular, with Russian legislation, since in a number of countries that are potential participants in the scheme there is no understanding of PPP or it differs from Russian (for example, in a number of Asian countries there is no concept of toll roads) , Mr. Khusnullin added.

The total financing needs of corridor projects are estimated at $38 billion (this should increase freight traffic by 15 times by 2030), while 67 out of 102 projects are now financed by countries at the expense of budgetary funds, said Denis Ilyin, Deputy Chairman of the EDB Board. The growth of freight traffic is also limited by “soft” barriers, primarily customs procedures, as well as various fees from carriers – their removal should allow cargo to be transported from St. Petersburg to Mumbai in ten days.

In turn, the head of the International Coordinating Council for Trans-Eurasian Transportation, Gennady Bessonov, called on the parties to “leave competition in creating their own transport corridors” (see, for example, “Kommersant” dated June 6) and pointed to capacity limitations, including routes under construction – the capacity of the Iranian railways on the Rasht-Astara section will not exceed 17 million tons, while the volume of cargo transshipment through the port of Novorossiysk is 150 million tons. Additional risks are associated with unilateral tariff increases. In addition, the participants of the transport session of the congress called for the creation of unified international operators – this will reduce costs for shippers, as well as for assessing the effectiveness of routes along the entire length, and not on separate sections.

Tatyana Edovina, Evgenia Kryuchkova, Sochi