Baltic States – CIS, EU – Baltic States, Latvia, Port, Transport

Port Ilyichevsk.

The trade network Baltic Sea – Black Sea has been known for over 1000 years. Also today more economic and faster roads from Turkey to the Baltic Sea and further to Scandinavia are searched for, the necessity for which is dictated by the active trade relations between the Southern and Northern countries. The container train ZUBR that runs from the Ukrainian port Ilyichevsk to Riga can be considered as the start of this project. By development of the new logistics network Turkey wants to ensure container shipment along the Black Sea from Istanbul to Ilyichevsk in Ukraine to forward by rail to Riga and send by ship further to Stockholm. As soon as a complete agreement between all interested parties will be reached we will have to think about opening of a new container line from Riga to Stockholm. Free Port of Riga Authority Strategic Planning and Project Management department Director Vladimirs Makarovs remarks that also Belarus is interested in development of this route to send their export production both to the South and North. Therefore representatives of the Latvian, Ukrainian and Byelorussian side see good perspectives in development of this route.  The container train ZUBR runs from Ilyichevsk to Riga in 36 hours.

During the meeting it was decided to form a work group consisting of representatives of Ukraine and Latvia that would continue work on development of the container train ZUBR in order to make it more economically attractive. The main advantage to cargo owners at the moment is gain of time. “I think that Belarus, Ukraine and Latvia are able to come to a mutual agreement to increase the financial competitiveness”.  Also the border crossing issues must be solved, although the former experience shows that problems on the border are insignificant provided that documents have been completed in due time.

We have to note that the Ukrainian and Byelorussian businesses are interested to ship their cargoes to the old European countries via Latvia or other EU countries. Use of the terminals located in these countries and the added value to the particular cargo enables them to use the EU member state brands. Therefore the Ukrainian businessmen have shown serious interest in construction of terminals and separate production units in the Port of Riga.

The next meeting with representatives of Ukraine is planned in Ilyichevsk. A delegation from the Free Port of Riga Authority will go there to evaluate the capacity of the Port of Ilyichevsk as the potential cooperation partner. Representatives of Belarus and Turkey, including the Turkish Development Agency and Ministry of Economy are also actually interested in this project.