On September 17, the two-day International Transport and Logistics Conference «PRO//Motion.West» started in Svetlogorsk, Kaliningrad region.
Vladimir Salamatov, General Director of ITI, moderated the session titled "Practical Cases of Cargo Transportation: Faster, More Streamlined, More Reliable".
"Transit railroad traffic between Europe and Asia (most importantly, China) is constantly growing. While in 2015 the volume of railroad container traffic between the EU and China was 40 thousand TEU, by 2018 it reached 370 thousand TEU. <…> The trade turnover between the EU and China continues to grow. Between 2015 and 2018, EU exports to China increased by 16%, and EU imports from China by 6%. In the first six months of 2019, the positive trend continued. Exports from the EU to China grew by another 16%, and imports to the EU from China by 17%," Vladimir Salamatov said in his opening speech.
The discussion centered on best practices and logistic solutions for organizing transit traffic through the Kaliningrad transport hub. The speakers also touched upon expansion opportunities for specialized railway services. The conference brought together representatives of JSC "RZD", PJSC "TransContainer", PKP CARGO S.A., RTSB GmbH, and ARS Altmann AG.
The railroad container traffic route between Europe and Asia via the Kaliningrad region has been actively developing since 2017. One of the main advantages of the transport and logistics complex of Kaliningrad region is the possibility to transfer goods from 1520 mm gauge to 1435 mm gauge. The effort put into developing the Kaliningrad freight hub to make it meet the challenges of our times and the needs of the industry players has already produced considerable positive results.