Mongolia serves as the shortest route to connect Asia and Europe

Mongolia, Russia and China joint forum, “Transit Mongolia – 2017” was successfully held on the 7th of April 2017 in Beijing.

The forum was organized by the Road and Transport Development Ministry in collaboration with the Mongolian Russian Joint Stock Company “Ulaanbaatar Railway” aiming to introduce Mongolia`s potential and resources as well as discuss future development policy, railway transit freight, border crossing, and the cooperation between the freight forwarders, railway ports and sea ports for the development of transit freight.

Transit Mongolia – 2017 forum was attended by government organizations, carriers, consignors, consignees, border, and customs administrations of the three countries.

The forum highlighted the opportunity to ship freights from Europe to Asia and Asia to Europe through Mongolian territory in the shortest time under safe and favorable conditions.

At the meeting between Chinese side, two new freight routes set to be opened and the train will run once in a week and four times in a month, reports the Minister of Road and Transport B.Tsogtgerel. 

Located between two great empires, Mongolia will not only be connecting its two neighbors, but also will be serving as the shortest route to connect Asia and Europe. The Trans-Mongolian railway connects Moscow and Beijing through its 1110 km long railway which considered as shorter than Kazakhstan`s corridor by 513 km as well as Manchurian corridor by 748 km. 

However, 167 freight train run through Mongolian corridor in 2016 while ten times more or 1700 freight train run through Kazakhstan and 1200 freight train went through Manchurian. 

Also, Mongolia shortened freight terms from 31 hours to 28 hours for routes from Russia to China and for 36 hours to 31 hours in routes from China to Russia. The freight distance per night was cut to 850 - 950 km. 

Mongolia railway uses broad gauge so that there is a need to transfer freight. Thus the country offered discount on freight cost as well as decreased the transfer freight term to 240 minutes from 420 minutes. Therefore, Mongolia aims to increase its transit freight by three times (400 containers) in 2017. 

An initiative to build railway connecting Russia and China through Mongolian territory, roads, oil and gas pipelines and five power lines and other infrastructure is called Steppe Road, which was approved by the meeting of heads of three countries in accordance with Chinese Road and Belt initiative and Eurasian Economic Union by Russia. It is considered as the first major program of establishing economic corridor. 

Trade turnover between China and Russia expects to reach US$ 200 billion by 2020 after the establishment of Steppe road railway corridor. 

China has divided its transit zone into three section including West, East and Center. Mongolia is included China`s central transit route. Therefore, the relevant authorities reminded a special need for increased economic efficiency by running China`s central transit route through the territory of Mongolia. 

In the recent years, the volume of trade and investment between the three countries, Mongolia, Russia, and China, have been consistently increasing. In 2015 the trade turnover of Mongolia and China reached 7.3 billion USD and the trade turnover of China and Russia reached 64.2 billion USD.