Silk Road Rail Conference in Slovakia; Experts Confer on Transit Logistics Center

FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

Silk Road Rail Conference in Slovakia; Experts Confer on Transit Logistics Center

April 28, 2018 (EIRNS)—Some 140 experts who attended a conference in Kosice this week on the Belt and Road Initiative, also dubbed the New Silk Road, concurred on the need to develop closer cooperation in logistics and to establish more effective transport links, especially by rail.

A key goal of the conference, organized by the Slovak Transport and Construction Ministry and the International Coordination and Service Center for Land Bridge Block-Train Programs from Beijing, was to present opportunities provided by Slovakia in terms of transit, including the planned project of constructing a logistics center for rail transport between Asia and Europe in eastern Slovakia, said Kosice regional authority spokesperson Anna Cincarova.

Yesterday, conference attendees went to see the rail transshipment points in Cierna and Tisou and Dobra (Kosice region), which serve for transloading between European-width rails and broad-gauge rails. The Dobra terminal currently has the annual transloading capacity for 200,000 containers and could become a major logistics center in eastern Europe.

“I’m happy that we concurred on several issues with the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China in Slovakia [Lin Lin] and the Chinese investors. I’m also pleased that the Chinese side has agreed to cooperate on the GLIP [Global Logistics Industrial Park] project. We’ll work on further joint steps in order to boost the status of Kosice region and Slovakia as a transit country,”

said Kosice regional governor Rastislav Trnka, stressing that Kosice region offers enough rail transport capacities between Asia and Europe, including a higher rail transport speed than Poland and Hungary.