China and Russia agree to Belt-and-Road deal in Jewish Autonomous Region
TASS, 20 July 2023—An agreement on the construction of a railway cross-border transshipment complex in the Jewish Autonomous Region (JAO) was signed by the regional authorities with a large private Chinese corporation in Heilongjiang Province, Xuan Yuan. The facility will store and transport liquefied gas, oil and petrochemical products, the press service of the regional government said on Thursday.
"Documents defining the cooperation between the region and the largest private Chinese corporation in Heilongjiang province were signed by Deputy Chairman of the Government of the EAO Dzhulustan Borisov and President of the Xuan Yuan Corporation Xue Xingfa. During the meeting, which took place on the territory of the PRC, three agreements were signed at once, [including] <...> on the joint construction of a unique railway trans-border transshipment complex in the EAO. The facility involves the storage and transportation of liquefied hydrocarbon gas, crude oil, oil products of various grades and other petrochemical products.
Earlier it was reported about the plans of Xuan Yuan Corporation to build a complex for transshipment of chemical products with an area of 1 million square meters in the JAO. m. The first stage of the project can be implemented in 2024. The planned capacity of the complex is 350,000 TEU of non-hazardous chemical cargo per year. The potential for handling dangerous chemical cargoes will amount to 10,000 TEU already at the start. In addition, it is planned to build infrastructure for sending tanks with liquefied hydrocarbon gases through the cross-border railway crossing across the Amur.
Also, representatives of the Jewish Autonomous Region signed agreements on the construction of a conveyor system across the Amur River for the transshipment of iron ore concentrate and other bulk cargoes with a volume of about 10 million tons per year. Another document regulates cooperation in the development of the territory of the Kuldur resort.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said in March following Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Russia that the governments of the two countries will approve a plan for the development of cooperation for the period up to 2030. According to him, we are talking about increasing trade and investment, updating the transport and logistics system, cooperation in the fields of industry, energy, agriculture, high technology and finance. It was also noted that joint work will be organized in five Russian-Chinese intergovernmental commissions - on investment, energy, humanitarian cooperation, on the development of interaction between the Far East and Northeast of China and in the commission for preparing regular meetings of the heads of government of Russia and China.