Paul Goble
Staunton, June 1 – Since the end of Soviet times, the amount of cargo carried on the Amur River between the Russian Federation and the Peoples Republic of China has declined from 36 million tons a year to only two. Officials in both countries hope to reverse that but the Russian side faces what has become a real hurdle – the creation of intermodal transport hubs.
A major obstacle in the development of Russian transportation and trade has been its difficulties in creating places where cargo must be shifted from one form of transport such as riverine to another such as railway or trucks. Unless that changes, growth will remain far slower than Moscow wants and occur not on the Russian side but the Chinese one.
Experts and officials are focusing on overcoming that problem and hope to make the exploitation of the Amur River both the basis for more rapid economic growth in the Russan Far East and a model for the development of Russian trade arrangements elsewhere (eastrussia.ru/material/vtoraya-zhizn-amura-rossiya-i-kitay-delayut-stavku-na-vodnuyu-logistiku/).
If a breakthrough is made anytime soon, however, it will likely be powered not by Russian but by Chinese efforts. China has been far more successful in developing intermodal transport than Russia, and Beijing is very aware that it will be able to expand trade more by riverine routes, which in its estimation cost much less per mile than do railways.
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