China-EU container traffic via Kaliningrad grows apace
The Kaliningrad region, Russia’s westernmost territory, is continuing to gain popularity among shippers and forwarders involved in container transport by rail between China and the European Union. In 2021 there was set a new remarkable result in terms of freight volumes. Moreover, the shift to multimodality has become more obvious for the logistics providers that prefer to arrange container transport via the Russian exclave.
126,300 TEU containers between China and Europe were transported via the Kaliningrad region in 2021. It is 2.6 times higher than the results of the year before. The share of multimodal container traffic reached the highest point, namely 84.2 per cent of the total volume (in 2020 it was 61.2 per cent). This means that 106,400 TEU containers were sent to the customers via the ports of Kaliningrad and Baltiysk and in the opposite direction.
2020 data
In 2020, the transit container traffic in the Kaliningrad region grew much faster, by 4.6 times compared to 2019. However, the freight volume itself was much lower, only 47,500 TEU. More than 29,100 TEU were transhipped at the two mentioned ports to feeder ships to deliver to the European harbours. The remaining 18,400 TEU containers ran via the Mamonovo/Braniewo railway border crossing.