A memorandum of cooperation on the issues of preparation and implementation of the project of international transport corridor Mohe - Dzhalinda - Skovorodino - Yakutsk (Nizhny Bestyakh station) - Magadan port was signed between АК Yakutian Railway JSC and the China Overseas Development Association (CODA). The parties will investigate this issue within their competence.

According to Alexey Mestnikov, Deputy Director General for Strategic Development of the RWY, the Chinese representatives have a potential interest in construction of this transport corridor. China would benefit from transporting Russian coal, LNG, timber, iron ore, etc. along this route.

He also specified that the CODA were ready to develop transport infrastructure on the territory bordering Russia, where it was planned to build Mohe - Dzhalinda bridge crossing.

The parties agreed to continue their business communications. The next working meeting with the involvement of company's specialists is scheduled for March of this year.

At the request of RZD JSCo the Institute of Economics and Transport Development considered six options for the route Nizhny Bestyakh - Magadan based of a set of the following criteria: cargo base, engineering complexity, cost and timing of construction, territorial development. Two of them were selected - Oymyakonsky (over 1.9 thousand km long) and through Ust-Neru (2.1 thousand km). The cost of the first one was tentatively estimated at 1 trillion 690 billion rubles, the second one at 1 trillion 774 billion rubles. In the course of project implementation a large number of engineering structures will have to be erected, there will be 96 and 103 large bridges, depending on the selected option of the future route.

The full text of the article can be found on the website of newspaper RZD-Partner .