China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) announced on 14 May that it has inked a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Russia’s Tuva Energy Industrial Corporation (Tuva) on railway and port projects in Russia.
The projects in the MOU include a 410 km railway track across central-southern Russia from Elegest to Kuragino via Kyzyl, another track from Kyzyl to western China, as well as a port in the Russian Far East. The estimated worth of these projects was not released.
CRCC will be the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractor for the three projects, and it will work with Tuva on all three projects. Contract negotiations for the projects will be launched as soon as possible, according to CRCC.
The agreement was signed during a visit to Moscow by Chinese president Xi Jinping to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II.
Russia is an important country in China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ policy, and the railway will not only transport the resources in Tuva to the port in Asia Pacific, but also connect China and Mongolia in the south of Russia, as well as oil and gas areas and ports in the north of Russia.
In September 2014, China and Russia agreed to build one of the largest ports in northeast Asia, which is just 18 km away from the Chinese border. It will be capable to handle up to 60 million tonnes of cargo a year.
This post was sourced from IHS Maritime 360: View the original article here.