Rustam Minnikhanov has arrived to Vladivostok and the first container train with goods from Asian-Pacific region has gone directly to Tatarstan

On 6 September Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov, who came on a working trip to Far East to take part in the East Economic Forum, visited Vladivostok sea cargo port.

The port is the largest one in the Far East of Russia and here Rustam Minnikhanov had a meeting with German Maslov - Vice-President in the linear-logistics division of the FESCO Transport Group which is the key player in the container shipping market with assets in the sphere of port, railway and integrated logistics business.

The FESCO considers Tatarstan to be one of the most promising entities for developing a key center of transport and logistics integration of foreign goods flows in the Middle Volga.

Speaking at the meeting, Rustam Minnikhanov said that Tatarstan is strategically interested in this kind of cooperation “Tatarstan has a good transport infrastructure and in our turn we are ready to facilitate the implementation of this transport and logistics project”, he said.

During his visit to the port, Tatarstan President looked round the auto and universal terminals and the container terminal control center where he was shown the Digital Twin system. He also took part in shipping the container train with goods from Asian-Pacific region countries to Tatarstan. The regular FESCO Kazan Shuttle will go twice a month from the Vladivostok to Tikhoretsk stations with the possibility of further transportation by cars inside Tatarstan and other cities in the Volga region. Previously most deliveries were carried out via Moscow.

In his turn German Maslov said: “Thank you very much, Rustam Nurgaliyevich, for your personal involvement and trust given to our group. We carried out marketing research and saw how markets and internet-trade are developing in Tatarstan. Currently there will be two trains but we are planning to make them more frequent. We hope that we will build a “bridge” between China, APR countries and Tatarstan”.

“Today we have given a start to the first container train and the most important is that it is as full as possible. Logistics issues are especially important for productions today. We should have a broader view and in addition to countries of the Asian-Pacific region consider markets of Turkey and Iran”, Minnikhanov stated.

Later the same day Tatarstan Government and the FESCO signed an MOI. On the sidelines of the Far East Forum Rustam Minnikhanov also had a meeting with the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Far East Shipping Company Andrey Severilov, who thanked him for his high interest in implementation of a joint project.