Hungarian, Russian and Chinese partners to set up joint rail cargo
Hungarian railway freight company CER Cargo, co-owned by the Hungarian state, will set up a joint venture with RZD Logistics, a unit of the state-owned Russian Railways, and a Chinese partner, State Secretary László Mosoczi said in Moscow on Wednesday.
The agreement on the establishment of the JV was signed on Tuesday by Mosoczi and Dmitry Zverev, Russia’s deputy transport minister.
The JV, in which the partners will hold equal stakes, will be registered in Hungary later in 2021.
Mosoczi said the partners could bring Chinese goods to Europe and chemicals and pharmaceuticals to China on a route that is shorter and faster than one that runs through Belarus and Poland and is already congested. The number of trains arriving in Hungary from China could rise to 1,000 a year from around 30 at present, while the Hungarian city of Zahony, on the border with Ukraine, becomes a logistics hub, he added.
Before signing the agreement in Moscow, Mosoczi held talks in Yekaterinburg with the leaders of Sverdlovsk Oblast on using the Trans-Siberian Railway for the endeavour.
