Development of Asian and other international reefer container trades into Russia - one of the world's top three importers of fresh produce cargo - is being seriously hampered by a mix of foreign and domestic factors.
Specific negative influences in that context include a reluctance by shipping lines and container leasing companies to allow their reefer boxes to be moved on from the ports into the Russian hinterland and general weaknesses in the Russian rail transport system when it comes to transporting containerised cargo.
As a result, while Russia is said to be the second largest importer of seaborne international fresh produce cargo worldwide behind the US, only 10-15 percent of that traffic is currently containerised. Those were some of the key points to emerge from a presentation given by Valery Novikov, managing director of Russian container leasing agent and broker Intervalira, at the recent Cool Logistics 09 conference in Hamburg, Germany.
According to Novikov, Russian ports last year handled about eight million tonnes, approximately 10 percent, of the world's estimated total international reefer cargo traffic of 80 million tonnes, although due to the economic crisis, the Russian figure was expected to drop to about seven million tonnes for this year.
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