On November 14, Moscow hosted the «Made in Russia» export forum. Most discussions of the Forum were focused on various aspects of implementing the International Cooperation and Export national project, such as international trade, manufacturing exports, export of agro-industrial goods and services, logistics, and applying the experience of Russian regions to the international market.
Vladimir Salamatov, General Director of the International Trade and Integration Research Center (ITI), spoke at the round table discussion Integrated Transport Solutions for Non-Resource Exports. The discussion was focused on the development of integrated logistics services aimed at boosting export carriage, using the state support measures and flexible tariff solutions.
The International Cooperation and Export national project comprises five federal projects, including the Logistics of International Trade federal project. When developing the project, the authors identified a number of pressing issues related to not only cargo transportation by specific modes of transport but also multimodal transportation. The problems include a lack of electronic document workflow and the necessity for creating new logistic routes.
The Russian Export Center gives much of its attention to searching for ways to eliminate these problems. Next year, as part of its work on the single-window system, the REC is planning to launch a project aimed at supporting exporters, especially small companies who are starting to enter foreign markets.
«Nine transport and logistics companies have agreed to participate in the REC project implemented as part of the work on the single-window system. The project will be launched next year. Its main idea is to create a service where you can set Point A (say, the city of Omsk) and Point B (say, the city of Berlin), and nine Russian transport and logistics companies will offer you their routes from the place of cargo origination to the consignee,» Vladimir Salamatov explained.
Another problem is the necessity for additional loading of containers that go in the direction from Europe to China. The United Transport and Logistics Company (UTLC) which dominates this route provides great opportunities. However, at the moment, Russia doesn’t have transport and logistics centers where it would be possible to load such containers with additional cargo. Besides, the European Union is loading the return container flow to a significant extent: while several years ago most containers went either by sea or empty, today up to 80-88% of containers go loaded.
«We are oriented towards a substantial increase in the volumes of export of goods produced by small and medium-sized companies. The experience of UTLC which is just beginning to develop, as well as the experience of other companies, should facilitate the movement of goods to the European Union and other recipients of our goods,» Vladimir Salamatov pointed out.
The key to successful development of international trade logistics is a transition to information exchange between the interacting entities.
«There’s such a term as ’data pipeline’. It describes a system where information is added up along the whole cargo route. At the start, the exporter provides some information which is then passed along all the steps of the transportation, with new information added at each step, so that the amount of data to be added gets smaller and smaller towards the end of the route. This is the path that we need to take so that state borders wouldn’t become an obstacle to free movement of goods,» Vladimir Salamatov explained.
Apart from these issues, the participants of the round table Integrated Transport Solutions for Non-Resource Exports, who included heads of large Russian and foreign logistics companies, experts in the field of export, and executive officials, discussed a number of other topics which are equally important for the development of non-resource exports, such as:
— Electronic document management solution for export carriage;
— Single multimodal bill of lading;
— Accelerating and facilitating the control procedures;
— Launching high-speed container trains with Russian agro-industrial produce («Agroexpress» trains);
— Digital logistics implementation.
As it is known, the sixth International Export Forum «Made in Russia» took place on November 14 in Moscow. The event was organized by the Russian Export Center and hosted around three thousand guests who represented Russian exporting companies, foreign buyers, and the professional community. For details about the business programme of the Forum, see the website of the Russian Export Center.
For more events featuring Vladimir Salamatov, General Director of ITI, see the News and Interview sections of our website.