Alexander Kakhidze, General Director of FininvestGroup and former head of the Customs Brokerage Department of Russian Railways, plans to invest about 5 billion RUB in construction of 100 thousand square meters warehouses as part of the second phase of the «Khovrino» Transport and Logistics Center (TLC) in the north of Moscow, he told RBC. According to Kakhidze, construction will start in 2023.
This complex with area over 40 hectares, commissioned in 2014, is located at the station of the same name on the Moscow — Saint Petersburg railway line. It allowed Russian Railways to attract additional freight traffic from Northwest Russia and the Baltic states, the company’s press service said. 4 billion RUB of private investment have been already invested into «Khovrino» TLC, said Kakhidze.
Why Moscow is developing TLC
Freight frame being formed in Moscow will increase the capacity and reliability of logistics chains to ensure the sustainable operation of enterprises of the consumer market and industry in the city, said a representative of Russian Railways.
Metropolitan authorities have been talking about the need to change the structure of intercity rail terminals for more than five years. In 2016, Moscow and Russian Railways agreed to optimize the operation of freight stations (at that time there were ten, including Khovrino and Kuntsevo-2, on an area of about 120 hectares), the shut-down of four terminals — «Moscow-Butyrskaya», Podmoskovskaya, «Moscow-Tovarnaya-Ryazanskaya» and «Moscow II Mitkovo» — was agreed.
In 2017, Federal Rail Transport Agency issued an order to shut-down two more freight stations, Paveletskaya and Kurskaya, where large freight terminals were located. As a result, a «Paveletskaya City» residential complex was constructed on the site of the largest container station in Russia, reminds Alexei Bezborodov, managing partner of InfraProjects. Now Russian Railways possess four functional freight terminals within the limits of MKAD — at Biryulevo-Tovarnaya, Kuskovo, Losinoostrovskaya and Kuntsevo-2 stations. And only the latter is designed to handle the containers used to ship the widest range of goods, says Bezborodov. According to the Eurasian Union of Railway Transport Participants, containers account for about 80% of Russia’s imports in dollar terms.
When will the modernization of railway terminals be completed?
According to Kakhidze, TLC «Khovrino» is already able to pass 250 thousand TEU. There are no plans to overcome this level. Construction of the warehouse complex will be completed in three to four years, he adds. Containerized cargo will be unloaded into warehouses and from there it will be transported by small trucks.
The main cargo hubs serving the needs of the Moscow Region are located in the Moscow Region, notes Kakhidze. Three transport and logistics centers in Moscow are enough to meet the city’s needs for cargo delivered by rail, including containers, he believes. This year the volume of cargo handling in the Moscow region will be 1.2-1.3 million TEU, forecasts a representative of Trans Synergy. According to his estimates, the existing container terminals and projects that are under implementation, will collectively increase capacity to more than 2.5 million TEU per year.
