RF President Vladimir Putin spoke at the opening of the Third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation held this week in Beijing, China.
He mentioned some of the forward-looking plans already being implemented in Russia, which complement other infrastructure projects in Eurasia, including those that are being implemented within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative. ‘Taken together, they will allow us to create an integral transport and logistics network and to diversify freight traffic through more effective, reliable and safe transportation,’ the President noted.
‘For example, we are building the North-South international corridor in European Russia, which President Xi has mentioned. It will connect Russian ports on the Baltic and Arctic seas to ports in the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Seamless rail connectivity, as professionals say, will be ensured throughout this route, from Murmansk in the north of Russia to Bandar Abbas in Iran’.
Another north-south transport artery Vladimir Putin spoke about will run via the Urals region and Siberia. Its main elements are the modernisation of the central part of the Trans-Siberian Railway, including the West-Siberian Railway line running across several regions of Siberia, namely the Omsk, Novosibirsk, Kemerovo and Tomsk regions and the Altai Territory. The other elements are the construction of the Northern Latitudinal Railway, as we call it, towards the ports on the Arctic Ocean and the Yamal Peninsula in the north of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, and a new North Siberian Railway from the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area towards our largest railway network comprising the Trans-Siberian Railway and Baikal-Amur Mainline.
‘A the same time, we are working jointly with our foreign partners to build railway lines from Central Siberia towards the south of the country, towards China, Mongolia and the ports of the Indian and Pacific oceans’.
‘Lastly, we are planning to build one more Arctic-South corridor in the Far East; we are currently preparing the necessary elements. It includes a railway line running from the Baikal-Amur Mainline to Yakutia, across the large Siberian rivers Lena and Amur , the Pacific Railway Line, the modernisation of motorways, and the creation of deepwater terminals in the eastern part of the Northern Sea Route’.
‘These north-south transport corridors in European Russia, Siberia and the Far East will allow us to directly connect the Northern Sea Route and to integrate it into major logistics hubs in the south of our continent on the Indian and Pacific oceans,’ Putin said.
‘As for the Northern Sea Route, Russia offered its partners the opportunity to actively use its transit potential. More than that, we are inviting all interested countries to get directly involved in its development, and we are ready to provide reliable icebreaker escort, communications and supplies. As soon as next year, navigation for ice-class vessels along the entire length of the Northern Sea Route will become possible all year round’.
‘The creation of the international and regional logistics and trade routes I have mentioned objectively reflects the deep changes that are ongoing in the global economy and the new role the Asia-Pacific and Global South countries and other centres of growth and development are playing now’.
‘In this context, Russia, which will assume the rotating chairmanship of the expanded BRICS next year, has advanced the initiative of establishing a permanent transport logistics commission within the framework of this group. This commission of BRICS members, partner countries and other interested states could focus on the development of the entire complex of international transport corridors,’ Putin said.
‘I would like to express confidence that the Belt and Road Initiative, the Russian priorities I have presented and the constructive and ambitious proposals by other countries, including those that are attending this forum, will help us find collective and truly effective solutions to really important current regional and international issues,’ he concluded.
Photo: Kremlin press office / Grigory Sysoev, RIA Novosti