Road carriers are asking for benefits for the construction of warehouses on the border with China

Road carriers are asking the President of the Russian Federation to support the construction of warehouses at road border crossings in the Far East. We are talking about giving the territories adjacent to the border crossing the status of TOP (Territories of Advanced Development). Both market participants and analysts note a shortage of free warehouse space: often there are no temporary storage warehouses near the border crossing, and a truck has to travel hundreds of kilometers to the nearest warehouse. Excessive demand leads to a shortage of warehouses on the Chinese side of the border, where Russian companies turn due to the lack of alternatives.

At a meeting of Vladimir Putin with entrepreneurs of the Far East on January 11, the founder of PEC and the head of the logistics committee of Business Russia, Vadim Filatov, asked to establish a TOR regime at international road checkpoints (MAPP) with China to support the construction of warehouse complexes.

According to Mr. Filatov, “the lack of multimodal warehouse complexes in the territory adjacent to international automobile checkpoints, and we have 24 checkpoints on the Russian-Chinese border, is a real deterrent,” as well as outdated warehouse infrastructure, which means an increase in delivery times and transportation costs . “There is a categorical shortage of warehouses in the surrounding areas,” he added. “Not only class A or A+, but class G cannot be found.” Vladimir Putin said at the meeting that in general “it is possible”, “but everything is good in moderation”: “we’ll think about it together with the governor, talk to the government.”

Many consumer goods from China are transported by road, including those purchased by Russian citizens via the Internet on local marketplaces.

According to the preliminary results of 2023, Konstantin Fomichenko, partner, regional director of the industrial and warehouse real estate department of NF Group, told Kommersant, the total volume of high-quality warehouse real estate in the regions of the Far East is 665 thousand square meters. m. “The overwhelming volume of supply is concentrated in the cities of the Primorsky Territory (59%), Khabarovsk Territory (33%) and the Sakhalin Region (5%), Amur Region (3%),” he says. “In other regions, class A and B no.”

In 2023, the volume of commissioning in the regions of the Far East amounted to 82 thousand square meters. m, adds Mr. Fomichenko, noting that comparison with 2022 is not relevant due to the extremely low volume of commissioning – no more than 11.5 thousand sq. m. m. “The share of free space from the total supply of these regions is less than 1%,” says the expert.

As Mr. Filatov explained to Kommersant, “the shortage of logistics sites on the border between Russia and China worsened two years ago following a sharp increase in cargo traffic and continues to worsen.” Over two years, the average border crossing time for groupage cargo has increased from one to seven days, including due to a lack of storage areas. So, if before 2021 a truck could pass through the border crossing in Suifenhe in a day, now the waiting period reaches four to five days. Mr. Filatov estimates a day of downtime at 5–7 thousand rubles, mainly the cost of fuel and wages for drivers.

According to the head of the subcommittee on customs regulation of Business Russia, Elvira Kuskova, only the Zabaikalsk-Manzhouli, Blagoveshchensk-Heihe and Pogranichny-Suifenhe international checkpoints are equipped with warehouse infrastructure on the Russian side on the Chinese border. After crossing the border at other border crossings, companies are forced to travel from 100 km to 300 km to the nearest temporary storage warehouses (TSW) in order to process and consolidate cargo. For example, from the Pokrovka-Zhaohe highway to the nearest temporary storage warehouse you will have to travel 220 km. “In addition, more than 95% of warehouses in Ussuriysk, Zabaikalsk, Kraskino, Pogranichny and many other settlements of the Far East are equipped with outdated equipment for cargo inspection,” adds Vadim Filatov, “so employees are forced to manually sort, pack and label shipments.”

According to Elvira Kuskova, most of the logistics centers in the border areas on the Russian side are overloaded, which is why not all operations are available for processing international shipments. For example, as of January, all warehouses near the Pogranichny-Suifenhe border crossing can only organize cargo transshipment. After crossing the border, companies distribute shipments to other warehouses in the Primorsky Territory for consolidation, packaging and labeling, she explains. Vadim Filatov adds that due to the lack of warehouses on the Russian side, companies are forced to process cargo on the Chinese side – temporary storage warehouses are most in demand in Heihe, Suifenhe and Manzhouli. During the high season, which lasts from September to December in logistics, these warehouses are also often overloaded, so Chinese operators impose restrictions on packaging, cargo labeling and other operations.

Mr. Filatov says that, in addition to the ASEZ status, it is necessary to consider the possibility of providing subsidies for Russian companies to reimburse part of the costs of building warehouses.

Natalya Skorlygina