OREANDA-NEWS  The economic blockade imposed on Russia by the countries of Western Europe has been broken: the turnover of goods through the checkpoints of the North Caucasus may exceed 15 million tons this year, said Ruslan Davydov, acting head of the Federal Customs Service (FCS) of Russia.

"On the Upper Lars, the economic blockade that the European countries have arranged for us is now being broken. We are able to pass 15 million tons of cargo along the North-South corridor," Davydov said, as quoted by the press service of the ministry.

According to him, last year for 5.5 months in the region of the North Caucasus Customs Administration, customs officers handled 5.6 million tons of cargo going in both directions, and for the same period of this year - already 7.8 million tons. "I think that this year we will exceed 15 million tons of turnover in the North Caucasus. We have an increase in trade turnover of more than 20% only in the Upper Lars," Davydov said.

He visited the Upper Lars checkpoint on June 21 during a working visit to North Ossetia. This is the only border crossing in operation today, connecting Russia with Armenia, Georgia and other countries of the near and far abroad.
The FCS notes that after the launch of additional control lines for freight transport on June 15 this year, the border crossing passes an average of about 1.2 thousand trucks every day, while less than a thousand before the reconstruction.