Baikal Economic Forum to focus on transport infrastructure development

08.09.2010 (14:54)

A conference “Europe-Russia-Asia-Pacific Region: Development of Transport Infrastructure” on Wednesday is part of the sixth Baikal Economic Forum.

The program of the conference includes three workshops, the forum’s press centre told Itar-Tass.

Thus, the first workshop will focus on the projects for the construction and upgrading of the railway infrastructure along the Euro-Asian transport corridors. Currently, it takes up to 11 days to deliver cargoes from Russia’s Far Eastern ports to its western borders by rail, i.e. trains cover 1,000 kilometers a day. In 2009, a program was adopted to ensure cargo deliveries across Siberia to Russia’s European regions within seven days, a goal to be achieved by 2012.

The second workshop will address problems of forming modern multimode logistics hubs at big rail traffic centres. Russian Railways Co is currently setting up such a hub worth 1.5 billion roubles in the city of Irkutsk. The hub comprises a 3,400 square metre covered warehouse, a 3,700 square metre roofed area to store heavy cargoes, a parking lot, a building for railway staff, customs posts and businesses. The terminal will be equipped with special tools to carry out radiation and other types of checks.

The third workshop will focus on projects of air hubs in the Europe-Russia-Asia-Pacific countries air corridor. Russia’s concept for the development of the airport network up to the year 2020 provides for the creation of 25 domestic airport hubs that will distribute transit air traffic flows.

Apart from this conference, the Baikal Economic Forum’s program includes 11 round-table meetings to discuss possibilities for the creation of a financial centre in Russia, problems of partnership between the state and private businesses, measures to support small and medium-sized businesses in Russian regions, new approaches to upgrading urban infrastructure, development of domestic and foreign tourism, and the ecological situation around Lake Baikal.

The forum will be crowned by a final news conference and a dinner on behalf of the forum’s steering committee president Sergei Mironov, who is speaker of the upper chamber of the national parliament.

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