OREANDA-NEWS. October 31, 2014. Vladimir Yakunin, President of Russian Railways, has said that the Company was ready to provide its clients not just transportation, but also door-to-door freight delivery and international carriage using several modes of transport.

Current trends on the global and domestic transport services markets are being defined by the economic slowdown. Under these conditions, the industry's strategic orientation is to provide comprehensive integrated services. So despite the complicated challenges it is facing, Russian Railways is therefore consistently implementing and developing its transport and logistics holding. This was announced by the President of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin at the XII International Conference "The Transport Services Market: Cooperation and Partnership", which was held in Moscow.

"We are ready to offer our customers not only transportation, but also freight delivery of door-to-door and international shipments using multi-modal transport," he said.

According to Yakunin, practical experience confirms the demand of this kind of services. In the third quarter of 2014 alone, RZD Logistics, a subsidiary of Russian Railways, doubled the volume of transportation by cooperating with the Far East ports and organising the full range of services, from shipping goods from the station to the handling / loading onto the ship.

Major companies such as EVRAZ, MECHEL, SUEK, Siberian Anthracite and others prefer the through-services provided by the Russian Railways' holding company for transporting their freight. The Company's through-services include cargo handling and forwarding at ports, sea freight and transportation by both Russian and foreign railways.

Thus, in July 2014 the Company organised a railway shipment to the port of Rajin in North Korea and the transshipment to a ship of the first major shipload of coal weighing more than 40,000 tons destined for China. Another such shipment for South Korea is planned for late November this year.

"In the future, we shall focus on the new technologies which our subsidiary GEFCO uses. To us, that is the driver which will develop our 4PL logistics services," said Vladimir Yakunin.

In 2013, GEFCO entered into a seven-year agreement with General Motors to provide 4PL services and transport more than 1 million cars a year within Europe, Russia and Turkey.

According to the president of Russian Railways, the Integrated Transport & Logistics Company joint venture which has been set up will also provide comprehensive services across the territory of the Common Economic Space of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. The basis of the Integrated Transport & Logistics Company's work consists in the uniform principles of its pricing policy, the mutual use of the rolling stock fleet and the introduction of unified technologies and standards.

"On the one hand, the Integrated Transport & Logistics Company's work will also provide a powerful transport platform for the implementation of a number of major projects in the countries of the Common Economic Space and open up the transit potential of the Customs Union between China - Europe. On the other hand, we will also be able to provide an adequate response to our major competitors in the competition to manage global transportation corridors - especially the EU and China," said Vladimir Yakunin.

In addition, Russian Railways is implementing a large-scale infrastructure project to build a network of terminal and logistics centres (TLC) linked by regular container trains which run according to a timetable.

It is planned to construct two railway ports, "Baltiisk" and "Primorsky", as well as more than 35 terminal and logistics centres and satellites in conjunction with the necessary reconstruction of the railway infrastructure.

Work is now proceeding on the pilot terminal and logistics centres Bely Rast, Khovrino, Kleshchikha, Grodekovo and Doskino.

"We welcome constructive cooperation with potential investors", said Vladimir Yakunin.