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Thursday, 28.03.2024, 23:00
LDz: Europe's railroads close to overloaded make it easier for Latvia to attract Chinese freights
Photo: ldz.lv |
Latvia has to make use of the situation - the steeply increasing container
freight amounts and the infrastructure not improving as fast, Berzins
emphasized. "As a result, the route that goes through Brest, traveled by
5,000 trains annually, has in fact reached its maximum capacity. It means that
clients have to look for other ways to ship their freights to the recipients, for
the same price and within the same time limits. And that is an opportunity for
Latvia," said Berzins.
"What we can offer is capacity and speed," added Berzins.
As for a container train that arrived in Riga Freeport from China's Urumqi yesterday,
Berzins declined to reveal when the next train from China could travel to Riga,
but said that work was under way on not only the next train, but on setting up
regular train traffic. "That is hard work as there are many variables to
consider, so I cannot give you the exact day when regular freight transport
could begin. But I am convinced that we will announce starting regular train
traffic one day," said Berzins.
As reported, the first container train arranged by Kazakhstan railroad
company KTZ for the Urumqi-Altynkol-Riga-Rotterdam
route left the city of Urumqi on September 29. From Riga, the cargo will be
delivered to Rotterdam by sea.
Kazakhstan's First Deputy Prime Minister Askar Mamin said during his meeting with Edvins Berzins in Riga at
end-September that Kazakhstan had chosen Latvia as its main logistics and cargo
distribution hub in the Baltics. Mamin indicated that with the shipping of rail
freight via Kazakstan growing, the amount of container cargos shipped in the
Latvian direction might increase to 200,000 units by 2020 and keep growing in a
more distant future.