Boris Lapidus
head of the economy department,
Ministry of Communications

        TransSiberian corridor's technical possibilities allow to transport about 200.000 containers of transit cargo a year from the countries of the Asian-and-Pacific region to Western Europe. However, some factors counteract the exploitation of the route's capabilities to full extent. One of these factors is the absence of the chief freight forwarder who would realize the coordinated rates and guarantee control and maintenance for the containers moving along the route. Other factors are the following:
high cost of sea freight between the Asian-and Pacific ports and the East Port;
high rates on the railroads of Poland and Germany for the transportation of transit containers to Western Europe through TransSiberian route;
high rates and absence of the home freight carrier on the line between St. Petersburg and West European ports.
        High profitableness of external trade container transportation in the Russian transportation market led to the displacement of the Russian marine and automobile freight carriers by the numerous foreign companies working in Russia with the aid of their agents, joint ventures (often with 100 percent foreign capital) and by themselves. These facts, together with the lack of domestic marine container operators, led Russia to the loss of control upon the container transportation of transit cargo. At present, this situation grows worse because the Russian freight carriers and forwarding agents do not have sufficient experience and resources for the work in conditions of strict competition.
        Their work is uncoordinated, and so they weaken each other. At the same time, foreign operators usually enter into alliances to attain strong position in the market. For this reason they are the first to choose the routes of transportation. This results in redistribution of freight traffic not for the benefit of the Russian freight carriers.
        The existing rate of coordination between freight carriers and forwarding agents on the TransSiberian route is not sufficient. This coordination is carried out within the framework of the International Coordination Council for TransSiberian Transportation. The financial interests of the participants of cargo transportation are not coordinated. Therefore, transit potential of the TransSiberian route is not used. For the last years, the volume of transit cargo transportation along the TransSiberian route made just about 20 thousand of large-capacity containers a year as against 1981, when 140 thousand of such containers were transported.
         Analysis of the external trade transportation market proves that both foreign and domestic cargo owners, while organizing external trade transportation, prefer to collaborate with the single freight operator who provides the necessary container park, full set of services, and control upon the location of cargo containers during their movement along the route. In order to fulfil these tasks and to raise the volume of container transit transportation, it is advisable to organize the national company - operator of external trade transportation.
         This company must work under the patronage of the Russian Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Communications. This company can exist as holding or consortium. It can include as its members such legal corporate bodies, as railroad operator for container transportation, automobile and transportation forwarding companies, freight terminals, Russian ports, Russian shipping companies, and investment companies (bank, insurance company). At present, a holding company or a consortium may have St. Petersburg Seaport joint stock company, East port joint stock company, Far Eastern Shipping Company, Siberian Aluminium group of companies, or Sovcomfleet joint stock company as its founders.
         The creation of such a company will contribute to the reduction of activities of the foreign container operators in the Russian market and their forcing out as well. This will also promote the development of inland container transportation. Preliminary calculations show that the creation of the intermodal container operator will make possible to reach the annual volume of transit transportation of 100.000 containers (and not less) by the year 2005.