In Khabarovsk (administrative centre of Russia's Far Eastern region bearing the same name) on the Amur river, Khasyan Zabirov, first vice-president of the join-stock association Russian Railways (RZD), has handed in the certificate on awarding the Far Eastern railway the first place in the sectoral competition of the 2004 first quarter.
The press service of the Far Eastern railway board said that, in the first quarter, loading in cars came up to 10,688,000 tonnes, or 107 percent from the same period last year; good traffic to 27,280,000 tonnes, increasing by 108.2 percent. The board paid over 914 million roubles of taxes to the budgets of all levels and extra-budgetary funds, the press service said.
The board investment programme will make it possible to greatly increase in the Primorye region the capacity of the port station Eastern Nakhodka, where the trans-Siberian trunk railway begins.
In the next 18 months, it is planned to build three additional tracks, master novel technologies and phase in new management information system, which will help the Eastern Nakhodka station increase by 50 percent its cargo-handling capacity. Upon updating, the station's throughput capacity will be 12 million tonnes of cargoes annually, the press service said.
The rapid growth of the bilateral flow of cargoes happens also on the Russian-Chinese railway route Grodekovo-Sunfeiho.
Five years ago one million tonnes of cargoes were handled here, in 2003 it was 5.7 million tonnes. This year Grodekovo-Sunfeiho is planned to pass seven million tonnes of cargoes, the press service said.
The project of linking the trans-Korean and trans-Siberian railways opens broad prospects, the Far Eastern railway board said. The development of the border railway passage Khasan-North Korean Tuman-gang station may, in tentative estimate, handle at least ten million tonnes of cargoes.
