NEWS

The Forum was held from November 29 to December 1, 2022 in Expoforum Exhibition Center in St. Petersburg, with the support of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Directorate of International Transport Corridors (DMTC), Eurasian Economic Commission, United Transport and Logistics Company - Eurasian Railway Alliance, International Transit Coordinating Council
TRANSTEC 2022 was attended by more than 1,500 people, including 400 delegates and 70 VIP participants. The leading players of the market including JSC "RZD", SC "Delo", PJSC "DVMP" (FESCO), ANO "DMTK", Saint Petersburg Government, VEB.RF, Delko, JSC "Federal freight company", PJSC "PhosAgro", PJSC "TransContainer", PJSC "Aeroflot" sent representative delegations. In addition to the Russian participants, the forum was attended by delegates from Azerbaijan, Belarus, Germany, India, Iran, Italy, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and Uzbekistan.
The business program included 15 events with 120 speakers - representatives of government, business, science and the expert community. The forum program was covered by 56 media outlets: 25 industry, 23 business editions and 6 TV channels. Volunteer support was provided by the students of St. Petersburg State University of Railway Transport of Emperor Alexander I.

The session "Mobility of spatial connectivity of the North-West region" discussed tools to improve the effectiveness of interaction between different modes of transport in the region, ways to form an inter-industry partnership network of the transport hub of St. Petersburg with international hubs in the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East and Latin America.
The participants put forward an initiative to create a transport and logistics cluster in the North-Western region, to move to innovative mobility of international trade services and integration of supply networks into global, national and regional value chains.
The North-Western transport hub was very seriously affected by the sanctions pressure, but practice shows that whatever the economic conditions, transport chains cannot be broken, but only rebuilt. There is too much money invested in the transport infrastructure of the North-West region, it cannot shrink or stand idle.

The discussion started with a talk about infrastructure, mobility and spatial connectivity of the North-West region, with the understanding that it is part of international transport corridors, not just a regional transport system.
Representatives of Oktyabrskaya railroad told about new projects at the junction with sea transport and motor roads. In particular about new transportation by the atomic container carrier Rosatom from St. Petersburg port to Nakhodka port along the Northern Sea Route. Also on the basis of the Oktyabrskaya railroad there are plans to create a storage hub for consolidation of cargoes, including those for the Northern Sea Route.
"Ports of the North-West, of course, experience drop in cargo handling, but we can not say that this drop is systemic and nothing is being done about it," Deputy Head of the Oktyabrsky Regional Center of Corporate Transport Service Maxim Losev noticed in his speech. - "North-South corridor starts in St. Petersburg. Yes, there is a decrease of cargo turnover with European countries, but it is replaced by cargoes of other carriers and directions. Thus for 10 months of this year cargo traffic in the south direction (to "North-South" and Novorossiysk port) has increased 20 times", - further said the speaker.
There is a wide range of services provided by Oktyabrskaya railroad. And it is not only container cargoes, half of the processing is inert cargoes.
There are 20 terminals in Oktyabrskaya railroad. All of them are ready to undertake foreign-trade transportations as well.
At St. Petersburg Finlyandsky terminal, the idea of an urban terminal, which corresponds to the modern urban environment and uses the most modern available technical solutions, was implemented.
It is impossible to speak about the development of the North-West without understanding how transport corridors work.

Alevtina Kirillova, Director General of "Eurasian Agrologistics", told about the connection of the North-West region with international centers and hubs of the Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Latin America.

In 2022, the Russian logistics market experienced dramatic changes: it is cut off from the West, foreign trade operations have shrunk, resulting in a complete reformatting of logistics chains. There are practically no regular container lines left that work with St. Petersburg. Cargo to St. Petersburg now goes by rail from the Far East. There is a proposal to transport cargo from China to Ust-Luga port with transit time of 42 days.
The speaker noted that the logistics niche between Russia and China has been least affected by the latest political events. Transportation with the Asia-Pacific region works quite regularly and steadily. New routes have appeared - it is the North-South corridor, which connects Russia with Iran and India, it is Turkey, which joined as a transit country due to the re-export regime and the possibility to launch new routes.

Statistics.
The potential cargo turnover of the North-West region is up to 570 thousand tons a year. These are export flows and counter flows, which are distributed in St. Petersburg, the Leningrad Region and the surrounding regions.
At present we are witnessing a significant reformatting of cargo flows. St. Petersburg ports are now also considering direct cargo flows from Latin America, Turkey, Morocco and Africa.

There is a project of building agrohub in North-West region with pulling regions - Karelia, Arkhangelsk, Vologda, Novgorod and Pskov Regions, with outgoing flows to Belarus, linking with Kaliningrad port.
The creation of such agrohubs and wholesale and distribution centers is included in the perimeter of the Eurasian AgroExpress integration project, which has Eurasian status. Signed in February 2022 by five ministers of the Eurasian Economic Union the Regulation of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council supports this project and authorizes the Directorate of the project ANO "Eurasian Agro Logistics" for strategic planning and building its perimeter. It is projected to reach supply volumes of up to 500 thousand tons by 2024. However, the route to China, which has already become a regular, reached 428 thousand tons in 2022.

Two agro-hubs are already operating within the framework of the project - these are Selyatino (Moscow region) and Orsha (Republic of Belarus). The main cargo flows are formed there, which are already in a regular format, mainly to China and countries of South-East Asia.
This year pre-project work for the construction of agro hubs in Kazan, Ufa, Stavropol, Shymkent (Kazakhstan) and Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) has already begun. The project includes the construction of an ORC in Tashkent. Uzbekistan is an observer country in the Eurasian Union, and pilot shipments are already underway there as well.