Cargo, China, Containers, Good for Business, Latvia, Railways, Russia, Transport

The agreement provides for developing cooperation in organizing shipping of container cargo from China to Latvia and in the opposite direction.

The memorandum envisages working out favorable conditions for the development of intermodal container transportation, using innovative technology and combined transport, as well as cooperation with the countries' customs authorities, to ensure that they are informed about the planned shipments in advance to speed up the process. The cooperation framework also provides for joint market research and exchange of information on the situation in the logistics sector.

Latvijas Dzelzcels CEO Edvinds Berzins said that the diversification of rail cargo and expansion to new markets is one of the Latvian company's strategic goals. This fall, Latvijas Dzelzcel launched cooperation with China Railway and and Transcontainer by successfully arranging a pilot container train from China.

Transcontainer CEO Petr Baskakov said that this cooperation is significant to the company as it will allow for providing convenient cargo delivery service from China to European countries.

"We tested this project, and it showed respectable results. At present, we are holding talks with potential clients on organizing regular container train traffic from China. Secondly, it gives us the opportunity to ship import cargo from Latvia to Russia, thus expanding the scope of cooperation. The document that has been signed today will promote further development of container transportation by rail both in Latvia and Russia," Baskakov said.

Transcontainer is Russia's largest intermodal contain shipping company.