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Railway linking NE China, Russia to resume in May

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-02-23 16:36

CHANGCHUN - A rail freight link between Northeast China's Jilin province and Russia is to resume operations in May, six years after its halt amid disagreements among stakeholders, a local official said Wednesday.

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Owners of the 100-km Hunchun-Makhalino Railway, which links Hunchun in Jilin with Makhalino Station across the Russian border, signed agreements on February 15 on the resumption of operations, a spokesman with the Hunchun government said Wednesday.

Jilin-based Northeast Asia Railway Group owns the Chinese stretch of 81 km, while the 20.3-km stretch in Russia belongs to a private Russian company, JSC Golden Link.

The resumption of the railway would promote trade and investment between Jilin and Russia as the two sides had seen increasing economic cooperation in recent years, said Jilin deputy governor Chen Xiaoguang.

The Hunchun-Makhalino railway is the only rail link between Jilin and Russia. Constructed in 1999 and put into operation in 2000, the railway was designed to carry 3 million tonnes of freight annually.

However, few trains used the track after its construction mainly due to the lack of operational coordination between JSC Golden Link and state-owned JSC Russian Railways, which owns the rail network in Russia. The line has carried only 52,000 tonnes of freight since its operation.

Freight transport on the line has been suspended since September 2004.