New Land Grain Corridor to build hub in Tatarstan for grain exports to Asia

KAZAN. May 16 (Interfax) - New Land Grain Corridor Group (NLGC) and the government of Tatarstan entered into an agreement Wednesday to build an inland grain hub with capacity to handle 8 million tonnes per year, the press service of the region's leader reported.

A terminal for high-speed transhipment of grain will be built next to the Deng Xiaoping logistics complex as part of the development of the Grain+ logistics model and the rollout of inland railway transhipment technology for bulk cargo, the press release said.

The freight base for the hub will be grain from Tatarstan and other regions in the Volga Federal District, while the target markets for exports will be China, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran and other countries.

Return freight, consisting of consumer goods and components for Russian companies in the amount of up to 200,000 TEU per year, will go to regional transport and logistics centers with which the grain hub will coordinate operations.

The timeline for the project has not been specified yet, Tatarstan's Food and Agriculture Ministry told Interfax.

NLGC is an export-oriented holding company that is carrying out a project in the Urals, Siberia and the Far East to build and develop infrastructure for exports of grains, grain legumes and oilseeds to China, Central Asia and the Middle East.

The key element of the Russia-China New Land Grain Corridor project, the Transbaikal Grain Terminal has capacity to handle 8 million tonnes of grain per year.