UN estimates outlooks for Trans-Siberian railroad

According to the forecasts of UN experts, the volume of products manufactured in South-Eastern Asia will surge several fold by 2011, and the Russian Trans-Siberian railroad is estimated as the best way to transport these goods to European markets, a UN representative announced at the international conference devoted to the development of container deliveries between Asia and Europe. This conference opened in Vladivostok today.

Participants of the conference stressed that the transportation of goods from South Asia to Europe via the Trans-Siberian railroad was one of the main tasks for the leadership of the Russian railroad. According to Russian Deputy Railroad Minister Sergey Grishin, the Trans-Siberian railroad is already capable to transport more than 200,000 containers from Asia to Europe a year, however, so far it transports only about 60,000 containers.

In 1989 the volume of transportation via the Trans-Siberian railroad was 240,000 containers, and profits received by the Soviet Union were about $1.5-2bn. The current task of the Railroad Ministry and chiefs of the Russian railroad is to return to these volumes and, in the long run, increase the volume of transportation to 1 million containers a year.