Bridging the Silk Road and hanseatic towns

After having travelled 5'700 km the historic Beijing-Brussels truck caravan arrived in Riga on 10 October.

Riga - At the press conference on the occasion of the truck caravan arrival in the capital of Latvia, Mr A. Shlesers, Latvian Minister of Communications, reported that earlier this year, Latvia had examined with China a draft treaty on international road transport that could speed up freight delivery from China to Latvia and further to the other EU countries. They had also raised the issue of promoting Chinese transit of goods through Latvian harbours.

In the opinion of Mr V. Trezins, President, Latvijas Auto, Latvian International Road Carriers Association, for Latvian transport operators who are participating in this event with their counterparts from Kazakhstan, Russia, Lithuania and Poland, this demonstration of road transport possibility of freight delivery from China to the CIS and EU countries is a realistic contribution to the implementation of the Latvian Government plans to develop a transport corridor for goods delivery along these lines.

The development of such a corridor for freight transport will allow the use of some sections of the Silk Road to deliver freight through Kazakhstan and Russia, further to Latvian and other Baltic harbours, including those of former hanseatic towns.

Mr A. Kondrusevichus, President, Linava, the Lithuanian International Road Carriers Association, said: "We are pioneering a very promising project. Its implementation depends on us and nobody else."

The historic Beijing - Brussels caravan, supported by the International Road transport Union, proves, after years of effort to bring down barriers, that the ancient Silk Road is now reopened under the caravan slogan "From Beijing to Brussels, road transport drives progress".