Russian, Chinese regional authorities discuss railway bridge across Amur River

BLAGOVESCHENSK. Jan 16 (Interfax) - The authorities of Russia's Amur Region and the neighboring Chinese province of Heilongjian have agreed on approaches to the implementation of the project to build the Dzhalinda (Russia)-Mohe (China) railway bridge across the Amur River, the Russian region's government said.

"The parties agreed approaches to the location of the bridge in the area of the population centers of Dzhalinda and Mohe. In addition, at the meeting they discussed possible models for the implementation of the project, as well as types of volumes of shipped products," the statement said.

The first meeting of the international working group on the construction of the new bridge was attended by representatives of relevant ministries of Amur Region and Chinese officials from Heilongjian, Greater Khingan and Mohe. The bridge would make it possible to increase the throughput capacity of Russia's eastern railways for shipping freight from Southern Yakutia to 10 million tonnes per year.

The construction of the bridge was discussed at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok last fall with the participation of Russian Railways (RZD) . The interested parties agreed then to form a working group.

The new bridge could be built on the basis of the currently closed Skovorodino-Reinovo public rail line under a public-private partnership, RZD said earlier.

The Neryungri-Skovorodino-Dzhalinda-Mohe transport corridor project is included in the strategy for the social and economic development of Russia's Far East and Baikal region to 2025.