Belarus receives first cargo delivery via Northern Sea Route
The first cargo delivery shipped via the Northern Sea Transport Corridor arrived at the Mogilev-Beltamozhservice transport and logistics center, BelTA learned.
A batch of goods for Belarusian economic entities was shipped from the port of Shanghai in August 2024. The sea container ship traveled through the Chukchi Sea and arrived in the port of St. Petersburg, from which the cargo batch was delivered by road to the final destination in Mogilev. The cargo spent 35 days in transit. Thus, the time of delivery from China to Belarus and back was reduced by almost 40% compared to the usual southern route.
First Deputy Director General of Beltamozhservice Aleksandr Skachkovsky emphasized that today marked the launch of the new logistics service that Belarusian business needed. “We used a minimum batch to test the logistics route,” he said. “This is equipment for the Belarusian manufacturing sector. In the future we are planning to use the route for various groups of goods. Today, any business entity can deliver any products to China using this route.”
He also emphasized that the new route has a navigation period, which ends in October and begins in April. However, plans are in place to organize year-round cargo delivery. “I am convinced that this route will be in demand, taking into account the navigation period,” Aleksandr Skachkovsky observed. “The most important thing is that now it is possible to plan cargo import/export operations with the People's Republic of China. There is a schedule and an opportunity to plan the shipment and your business. This indicates stability, and stability is development.”
The Northern Sea Route is one of the promising transport corridors, and Belarusian enterprises and organizations are eyeing it. “The ships are designed to carry up to 5,000 containers, and this is not the limit. Tens of thousands of containers can be transported per month if necessary. This project uses the infrastructure of the Russian Federation. Accordingly, it is an opportunity to work along the route China - Russia - Belarus without intermediary mechanisms,” Aleksandr Skachkovsky observed.
The shipping route runs along Russia's northern shores along the seas of the Arctic Ocean, connecting European and Far Eastern ports of Russia and the mouths of navigable Siberian rivers into a single transportation system. Its length from the Kara Gate Strait (near the Novaya Zemlya archipelago) to Providence Bay (near the Bering Strait) is 5,600 kilometers, and the route through this transport corridor is almost twice shorter than other sea routes between Europe and the Far East.