A railway bridge to be built by China and Russia across the Amur River in southeastern Siberia was approved in mid-March. The bridge will connect the city of Mohe in China's Heilongjiang province with Djalinda in Russia's Sakha Republic.

Sakha or Yakutia is the least densely populated of all Russian provinces. It is rich in coal, natural gas, timber and iron ore, but their domestic market is small. For now, it can only ship its goods to China, its largest export market, through Pacific ports in both countries. Direct rail will be shortened by about 2,000 kilometers from these routes.

In September 2022, a memorandum of cooperation on bridge construction was signed at the Eastern Economic Forum. President of the Republic of Sakha Eisen Nikolayev said at the time that the construction of the bridge will increase the capacity of the Eastern Railway to export goods from South Yakutia to 10 million tons per year, and the transportation chain will be connected to Yakutia without transshipment. unique ecology has a positive impact.

The Sakha Republic Railway Company has signed a memorandum of understanding with the China Industrial Overseas Development Association to carry out this work. The route will pass through Mohe, Jalinda, Skovorodino, Yakutsk, and finally arrive at the Magadan Port in the Sea of Okhotsk. No start date was given for the project, but when complete it will be a second rail bridge between the two countries.

The first is the 7,194-meter Tongjiang Bridge, a box-girder structure about 1,300 kilometers east of Mohe, but still on the Amur River. After a seven-year effort, it will open in November 2022, cutting off some 700 kilometers of existing trade routes.

Rail freight between Russia and China on the basis of the Baikal-Amur and Trans-Siberian Railways will increase by 28% in 2022, reaching a record 123 million tons. This is mainly due to the doubling of Russian LPG exports. Total trade in 2022 is $190 billion, a 20% increase over the first two months of 2023.Editor/XingWentao