The shipping companies have launched services from Saint-Petersburg to India, China and the South-East Asia
Container throughput of Russia’s Baltic terminals may recover by 2024, IAA PortNews correspondent cites Albert Likholet, General Director of Global Ports Group, as saying at the 16th forum Transport of Russia.
“We see the shipping companies’ test steps in the segment of seaborne container transportation in the North-West Region. The companies are testing their direct services from the South-East Asia and China. Services linking India and Saint-Petersburg have been launched. By the end of 2023, or may be by 2024 we will see the return of the business to the North-West. I presume that new players earlier operating in the Asian region will be encouraged with the working schemes,” he said.
In the first half of 2022, after Maersk, MSC, Hapag-Lloyd and other line operators left Russia, the country’s logistics turned eastwards. Experts say 14 of 20 lines that withdrew from Russia accounted for 70% of the cargo flow in the North-Western ports of Russia.
TransContainer (a company of Delo Group) says that railway transportation of containers bound for the ports showed the following dynamics in January-October 2022: in the North-West Basin – down 61% (down 87% in October), in the Far East Basin – up 19% (up 33% in October), in the Caspian Basin – down 5% (down 7% in October ). The company expects the import of the key container cargoes via western borders of the Russian Federation to fall by 9.5 million tonnes. Meanwhile, the import of the key container cargoes via the Eastern Polygon is to grow by 11.5 million tonnes in 2023-2024. According to the company, crucial imports via the Eastern Polygon totaled 4.3 million tonnes in 2021 (chemical industry products, machinery, spare parts, equipment and electric systems).
Global Ports Investments PLC is the leading operator of container terminals in the Russian market by capacity and container throughput. Global Ports’ terminals are located in the Baltic and Far East Basins, key regions for foreign Russian trade and transit cargo flows. Global Ports operates five container terminals in Russia (Petrolesport, First Container Terminal, Ust-Luga Container Terminal and Moby Dik in the Russian Baltics, and Vostochnaya Stevedoring Company in the Russian Far East) and two container terminals in Finland (Multi-Link Terminals in Helsinki and Kotka). Global Ports also owns inland container terminal Yanino Logistics Park located in the vicinity of St. Petersburg.
Global Ports’ major shareholder is Delo Group, the largest intermodal container and port operator in Russia (61.5%). 20.5% of Global Ports shares are traded in the form of global depositary receipts.
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