Eurasian development Bank counted six possible options for a new “silk road” from China to Europe. It turned out that on some routes, shipping freight will be too expensive, and others for a long time. “Газета.Ru” understood, transit corridors, Russia could become a beneficiary. And what in the end will prefer China.
To catch the tail of the Chinese
Russia and China plan to build a high speed railway line from China through Harbin to Vladivostok Mudanczyan length of 380 km with 12 stations. Estimated project cost — $19 billion.
It was supposed to lay on this piece only passenger line with the speed of trains up to 250 km/hour, but then it was decided to design a road, which will be transported and the goods. About this informed the head of the state company China Railway Dongfang Group Cai Zemin.
The Russian Ministry for development of Russian Far East thus contends that the line the Harbin — Vladivostok is part of a global project “to interconnect the Eurasian economic Union with the economic zone of the silk road. It probably will, but if you look at the map, the branch Harbin — Vladivostok goes in the opposite direction from Europe, where, in fact, targeted a cargo flow from China. And it’s not the only downside generally useful, but the local project.
It is not surprising that the Ministry of the Russian Federation is trying to fit into the project “silk road”. The volume of investments of China in the project will exceed $1.1 trillion. For 2013-2016, China’s trade turnover with the countries located on the route “silk road”, has reached $3.1 trillion. Promoting the project personally by the Chinese President XI Jinping. He has visited 37 countries, who are interested in becoming an organic part of a mega-project to receive investment, or at least cash in on transit.
Russia is no exception. But territorial competition is high. The new overland route for Chinese goods will be sent to Europe to compete, in addition to Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria.
The main options are reviving the “silk road” at least six, according to the Eurasian development Bank.
Through the port of Constanta no chance
The least promising and low-power is the route Urumqi to Aktau — Baku — Poti with further access to the EU via the Romanian port of Constanta (or as an option – via the Bulgarian port of Burgas). Its theoretical capacity is only 50 thousand TEU (TEU — unit of measure of goods equal to the volume of one 20-foot container).
“Poor transport infrastructure (both road and rail, and port) leads to the fact that the cost of shipping 1 TEU by road to Constanta in 2016, the average was about $4 thousand, and the train is even higher — $5 thousand Expensive. Therefore, the movement of containers on route from China to the EU”, — says Taras Tokarev, head of the Centre for integration studies of the Eurasian development Bank.
This route will require the performance of extensive range of works, which include construction of container facilities in Aktau, Baku and Poti, modernization and construction of new Railways, roads, tunnels and container logistic centres. Large-scale investment volumes in combination with multiple congestion at the ports actually put an end to the future of this route, said Tokarev.
The most ambitious route – Turkish
The most ambitious route: Western China — Kazakhstan — Turkmenistan — Azerbaijan — Turkey — EU. The main difficulty of this route is the necessity of building more of the infrastructure from scratch, the intersection of multiple borders and a change of several modalities (i.e., transshipment of cargo from land to sea and sea to land).
Movement of containers on route from China to the EU in this corridor now, either.
“The fact that the transit flow from China to Europe was just on this route, most excited about Turkey,” — said Tokarev.
In 2010, discussions began on the construction of high-speed railway Edirne (Turkish city on the border in Greece) — Kars railway, linking the West and East of Turkey. Interest in participating in the project showed, and China. In 2012, the Chinese have declared readiness to invest in the construction of this highway is $35 billion construction Completion scheduled for 2023. This highway, according to the EDB, in the future can become one of the links of the transcontinental railroad, connecting China with the EU countries.
The Iranian corridor — short and cheap
Another option is the “silk road” is associated with Iran. This is one of the shortest land routes to Europe: the Western China — Kazakhstan — Turkmenistan — Iran with the route via Turkey to the EU. In February 2011 on this route was launched on the first test container train. For 9 days, the train came from the province of Janssen to the Turkmen-Kazakh border, and for 14 — to Tehran. Delivery of goods from China to Tehran was two times shorter than the sea route (about 25-30 days).
Theoretically, the capacity of the Western route China — Kazakhstan — Turkmenistan — Iran is estimated at 300 thousand TEU.
The cost of cargo transportation the corridor is estimated in 2016 at $1,7 thousand for 1 TEU in delivery by rail and $2.7 thousand car.
“North — South”: solid unfinished
International transport corridor (ITC) “North — South” (Europe — Russia — Iran — India with branches in the Caucasus, the Persian Gulf, Central Asia). This route is aimed at attracting transit cargo from India, Iran and other countries of the Persian Gulf to the Russian territory (via the Caspian sea) and later in Western and Northern Europe.
“But transit traffic from North to South on the corridor is almost nonexistent, mainly due to lack of port capacities in Russia, the development of which is expected to take a long time,” — said cukanov. In the short term will complete the construction of the port of Olya in the Astrakhan region with a designed capacity of 8 million tons of dry cargo per year. However, such volumes cannot render any serious influence on the redistribution of trade flows in the region, says the expert.
Eurasian corridors — our all
Finally, the most preferable for Russia are considered as two corridors. In the terminology of the Russian side, they are also called: Northern Eurasian and Central Eurasian. North uses the port of Vladivostok, and in purely terrestrial option, the highway enters Chinese territory Zabaikalsk, then goes through Chita, Ulan-Ude and Irkutsk on the TRANS-Siberian. Comes through Yekaterinburg and Kazan to Moscow and St. Petersburg and then by sea to the EU.
Central Eurasian corridor runs from Shanghai for Central China via XI’an, Urumqi, and enters Kazakhstan through the border checkpoint Dostyk. This option is considered part of the high-speed line Beijing — Moscow – Berlin.
The total length of HSR “Eurasia” — 9.5 thousand km, of which on the territory of the Russian Federation- – 2 thousand 366 km. the Total capital cost of the construction of Brest (Belarus) — Dostyk (Kazakhstan) amount of 7.08 trillion, Dostyk Urumqi (China) was 0.76 trillion rubles in the First section of HSR projects, is planned for 2018, is a Moscow — Kazan. But will start if its construction is not clear yet.
Another variant of the Central Eurasian corridor already runs through the special economic zone “Khorgos — Eastern gate” created by China together with Kazakhstan on the territory of the latter.
Silk road or silk noose
Which of these options will be the main, now nobody knows. Even the Chinese themselves prefer, by the way, to diversify risks and not to make any hasty decisions.
However, the current dynamics of cargo traffic from China to Europe and back on rail routes in Northern Eurasian corridor and the Central Eurasian corridor is the most impressive. After the growth of container throughput in 2015 to 43% in 2016, it was recorded a doubling to 148 thousand containers. In 2016, the transportation through Dostyk (Kazakhstan) and Naushki (output via Mongolia on the TRANS-Siberian railway) has increased more than two times, through Zabaikalsk (exit from the North-Eastern provinces of China to the TRANS-Siberian) by 27%.
For the first half of 2017, with transit through Kazakhstan in the direction China – Europe – China freight lifted two times more compared to the same period of the previous year. The increase from 36 to 73 thousand TEU thousand TEU.
EDB experts predict a rise in container volumes from China to Europe and back by the end of 2017 at the level of 80-100%. First and foremost, this growth is possible due to the traffic on rail routes in Northern Eurasian corridor and the Central Eurasian corridor.
Will be able to capitalize on these cargo flows of Kazakhstan and Russia. But to cooperate with China, we are careful to “silk road” turned into a silk noose, experts warn. “Russia’s cooperation with China is very important from the point of view of reviving growth. But Russia should become not a subordinate but an equal partner”, says Ruslan Grinberg, head of the research Institute of economy, RAS.
