NEWS

The plenary session of the second day of the forum, October 21, was devoted to the logistics of change and building new supply chains for export and import products and the domestic transport market.
The session became a platform for direct dialogue between the participants of the logistics process. It was attended by representatives of state regulators, leading container operators, participants of FEA, specialists of transport and logistics industry, and experts. They were tasked to form an up-to-date understanding of the main trends of the domestic transport industry, assess the directions of improvement of the goods transportation infrastructure on the key routes of international transport corridors, discuss the existing problems in FEA logistics and possible ways to solve them with the participation of state regulators, market players and the expert community.
The key speakers of the Plenary session were:
Alexey Logvinovich Overchuk, Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation;
Dmitry Vyacheslavovich Zverev, State Secretary - Deputy Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation;
Sergey Shishkaryov, President, Delo Group of Companies;
Ruslan Valentinovich Davydov, First Deputy Head of FCS of Russia;
Dmitry Iovchovich Murev, General Director, JSC "Russian Railways Logistics";
Sergey Pavlov, First Deputy General Director, Russian Railways

The session was moderated by Alevtina Kirillova, Director General of Eurasian Agrologistics, Doctor of Science, Professor.
In the context of the new geopolitical and economic reality Russian producers are looking for ways to reduce logistics costs to maintain business profitability and competitive positions on global markets, taking into account the new realities and dramatic changes in established supply chains.
Russia is actively developing new trade routes to Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, forming a network of transport and logistics centers that can guarantee reliable delivery of goods in the new economic model.
The main task for today is to provide a high-productive and independent from external factors transport and logistic system, capable to serve the foreign-trade cargo traffic with the maximum profit for all parties, involved in the supply chain; the solution to this task combines the interests of the state and business.
The need to urgently change the usual logistics chains is a serious challenge for foreign trade participants and transport service market players.

"It is important for all our exporters to imagine the big picture and understand what is happening now in terms of reorientation of transport and logistics flows. We need to build our development plans on the basis of new conditions and emerging opportunities.
The new reality forming around us determines the reorientation of transport and logistic flows and the creation of a new infrastructure, able to provide access for Russian exporters to new markets and meet the demand of new consumers of Russian goods.
This infrastructure has already begun to be created, and the prosperity of our country's economy will depend on its ability to provide competitive conditions for Russian producers and exporters," - said Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation Alexei Overchuk in his opening speech to the participants of the session.

The search for new international ways for the Russian export leads to the necessity of accelerated development of the North-South ITC. Its obvious advantage is that many countries to the south of Russia are members of the EAEC, CIS, SCO and BRICS, or cooperate with these associations. These countries have a friendly or neutral position with respect to Russia, demonstrate the highest rate of economic growth today, they are home to the majority of the world's population, and it is there that the global center of economic activity is shifting.
The ports of the Azov-Black Sea basin increase their capacity, new sea lines are being formed from the ports of Novorossiysk, Caucasus and Taman. They provide direct independent logistics service to Turkey, North Africa and the ports of South Asia.
Relations with Azerbaijan, India and Iran were intensified. Joint projects to develop the Caspian Basin port infrastructure and rail transit container services are designed to increase the competitiveness of the North-South corridor and provide producers with a convenient delivery channel.

"The main tasks are infrastructural, organizational and regulatory. The Ministry of Transport of Russia is doing a lot of work to update and modernize the Road Maps, their synchronization of export-import opportunities of regions for producers, not for the transit of goods of third countries. Under current conditions it is very important to form an effective management system to ensure foreign trade and export of transport services", - said Dmitry Vyacheslavovich Zverev, State Secretary - Deputy Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation in his speech.

First Deputy General Director of JSC "Russian Railways" Sergey A. Pavlov noted that the traffic volume on all branches of the transport corridor "North-South" is increasing. Thus, 5.3 million tons of cargo passed through Samur-Yalama border crossing with Azerbaijan for 9 months of 2022 which is 55 % more than for the same period of the last year. In the eastern branch of the corridor there is an increase in goods turnover with India. The speaker also stressed that the Holding is actively working with foreign partners on issues of development of the North-South ITC: it negotiates the application of competitive tariffs; looks for joint solutions on development of railway and terminal-logistics infrastructure. Negotiations have resumed on the construction of the missing 160-km stretch of railway track between Rasht and Astara in Iran. Electrification of the Garmsar - Inche Burun railroad is underway, and a set of works is planned to increase the average speed of railway traffic in this region.

General Director of the JSC "Russian Railways Logistics" Dmitry Iovchovich Murev underlined the importance of creating comfortable conditions for exporters and importers on the new logistics directions and the need for an individual approach to solving the problems of each client.
By the end of this year Russian Railways Logistics JSC is planning to send first autonomous refrigerated containers within the regular container train heading for India via the North-South ITC. The shipment will take place within the development of the project "Eurasian AgroExpress".

Chairman of the Board of Directors of "Delo" Group Sergey Nikolaevich Shishkaryov proposed to make Azov-Black Sea basin as the base region for Russian non-resource export.
Delo" Group is already opening new transportation services from Novorossiysk to Turkey, India, Israel, Vietnam, UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Summarizing the results of the session, Alevtina Kirillova noted the high relevance of accelerated development of international transport corridors and new logistics routes, as well as the importance of digitalization of transport services and the transition to electronic document management, which will improve the quality of transport services, increase the speed and seamless passage of state borders when exporting Russian goods.