Vitaly Eksuzyan: The rhythm of development of relations between Transbaikalia and China needs to be increased

The Trans-Baikal Territory expects to increase investment to more than 900 billion rubles by 2030, modernize the largest land checkpoint on the border with China and launch new projects in energy and logistics.The acting director spoke about these and other projects in an interview with TASS.Minister for Planning and Development of Transbaikalia Vitaly Eksuzyan.

— Let's start with summing up the past year.Tell us how much investment you managed to attract to Transbaikalia in a year?Is there growth?

— Investments in fixed capital for 2025 amounted to 292 billion rubles.In 2024, this amounted to 284 billion rubles.In absolute terms, investment growth amounted to eight billion rubles.I would like to not just operate with big numbers, because people may ask - what does this number mean for us?In fact, it is all connected by invisible threads.Today we have concrete results.For example, we index teachers’ salaries four times a year.These are also the results of our painstaking work.The more investors come to the region and pay taxes, the more opportunities the budget has to fulfill social obligations.

—Are there any plans for how much investment will be attracted over the next five years?

— Yes, we plan to reach 900 billion rubles by 2030.Investment activity, the number of investment projects and the volume of investments will confidently go up.Because we see the interest of investors.We as a region are obliged and will help them, since this directly affects the growth of our budget.

—What projects are in your plans?Is this mainly the mining industry or are there other areas of development?

— Indeed, mining prevails in our country today.So we cannot take and change the vector of the region to some other direction at once.Historically, it was to some extent lucky that nature rewarded us with such wealth.Now our companies are actively moving from mining to processing.

We must not forget that our logistics industry is actively developing in second place.Large transport and logistics companies are coming to the region.One of the projects that we will now implement under a concession scheme in Zabaikalsk on the border with China is a large logistics complex together with Gazprombank.There the volume of investments is about 55 billion rubles.

We have already identified the land plot and sources of financing.And starting this year, my colleagues and I are beginning to actively build it.In three years it should be built and put into operation.But this is not the only such project, there are many others.Wildberries is actively building a warehouse complex for 7.6 thousand jobs, the first stage is a warehouse with an area of ​​90 thousand square meters.m, a very large number of logistics complexes are being created.

—How is the development of our border crossings going?

— In general, it must be said that up to 70% of Russia’s land cargo goes through the village of Zabaikalsk, where a multilateral automobile checkpoint (MACP) and a railway checkpoint (RCP) are located.We ended the year with a 5% increase in cargo.In physical terms, 26 million tons left through the international border crossing point and the Zabaikalsk railway border crossing point.But there is something to strive for, I believe that more is possible.

Therefore, we have plans for reconstruction.Rosgranstroy has developed design and estimate documentation for the reconstruction of the Zabaikalsk international checkpoint.We have won a competition and have a contractor who is already mobilizing its resources on the border of Zabaikalsk with China, creating a construction camp, accumulating construction equipment there, we have allocated them a plot of land for this.Reconstruction will begin soon.We plan to increase the cargo flow at the Zabaikalsk international checkpoint sixfold.Construction work should be completed in 2028.

—Now there is an order from the president, according to which it is necessary to reduce the time of crossing the border to 10 minutes.Will you be able to achieve this?

— The instructions of the President of the Russian Federation must be carried out, so, of course, it will be possible.Now the border crossing time is about 30 minutes.And by 2028 everything should be completed.We here with our colleagues from Rosgranstroi will closely monitor this, but they are more like customers, this is generally their direct responsibility, and we are like interested parties.

—Residents of the region often ask: when will it be possible to travel to China in their own cars again?What work is being done in this direction?

— Yes, there are these plans, they are being actively discussed with the Chinese side.Recently, the Consul General of the People's Republic of China in Irkutsk, Liu Yu, came to us, and Governor Alexander Osipov met with her in the building of our ministry.And one of the priority issues was raised to convince our Chinese colleagues to allow cars with Russian license plates to enter and use Russian driver’s licenses on Chinese territory.Today, these are two factors that do not allow you to cross the border with China in your car.

We believe that we must actively promote this issue and ultimatelynot to convince colleagues, because this issue generally affects the residents of the Trans-Baikal Territory to a greater extent.It is not yet known whether it will work, but we have already puzzled anyone who could be puzzled by this question.We will not reduce the level of this activity further.And, to be honest, I myself plan to travel to China by car.I want to meet my counterpart colleagues there and chat.And I see that people are actively asking for this.

—The Zabaikalsk-Manzhouli passenger train is now resuming service.

— Yes, this, by the way, is our victory.Indeed, we have reached an agreement with our Chinese friends and exchanged all international agreements.Therefore, on March 8, we resumed passenger rail service with Manchuria.We don’t stop there; we plan to launch trains to both Harbin and Beijing.In general, we will try to return to the pre-Covid level of interaction.

In general, the pandemic has disrupted the rhythm of development of our relations with the People's Republic of China.Now we just need to increase it.By the way, we need to pick up a similar pace with our Mongolian friends.From there very active signals come to us.We also met with the Mongolian Consul General.All relevant questions were also raised.That is, this pace of activity just needs to be returned, increased and actively moved further.Because this is not only tourism.

For example, our cargo transportation.Today we have two railway tracks going to the Zabaikalsk railway checkpoint on the border with China, and one comes from there.The Russian Federation, for its part, built its part of the narrow Chinese railway.We are now waiting for our Chinese friends so that they, on their part, will complete the construction.Work is being done there, we know, we see.Well, here we are a little ahead of our Chinese partners.

— Tell us, how do you generally now assess the interaction of Transbaikalia with China?How active is it, what joint projects are being implemented?

— Generally speaking, interaction between the Trans-Baikal Territory and China is developing quite actively today.We see a steady interest of Chinese investors in our region, and several large projects with the participation of Chinese capital are currently being implemented.First of all, these are projects in the field of mining, for example, the development of the Noyon-Tologoiskoye, Talmanskoye, Klyuchevskoye and Berezovskoye, Zashulanskoye deposits.There are also projects in other industries: in agriculture, for example, growing sunflowers, as well as industrial production - the construction of a wear-resistant materials plant in the Stroyprom industrial park.In general, investments in such projects are quite serious - we are talking about tens and even hundreds of billions of rubles.

Last year alone, we held about 20 bilateral meetings with Chinese investors, where we discussed new opportunities for cooperation and the launch of modern production facilities in the Trans-Baikal Territory

In addition, we have strategic plans.One of the key projects is the creation of the international multifunctional complex “Eastern Gate Zabaikalsk - Manchuria”.This will be a large platform for the development of Russian-Chinese economic relations: it is planned to have an industrial park for joint production, a transport and logistics complex and a tourist zone.

— Cooperation is not limited to economics?

— Of course, projects in culture, sports and education are also important for us.We are planning to launch joint educational programs with universities in the Chinese city of Xi'an and create a Russian-Chinese Institute of Design and Neuroart on the basis of the Trans-Baikal State University, where students will be able to receive two diplomas at once - Russian and Chinese.

At the same time, sports and cultural initiatives are being implemented: the Russian-Chinese rhythmic gymnastics competition “Transbaikal Graces” and the international wushu tournament “Heirs of Victory” are taking place.There are also tourism projects, for example, the “I have a family in Russia” program, when schoolchildren from China come to Transbaikalia to get acquainted with Russian culture and the life of ordinary families.

Therefore, we can say that interaction with China today is multifaceted - it includes investments, education, culture, and humanitarian ties.And we see good prospects for the further development of such cooperation.

—This year the law on the creation of international priority development territories came into force.And for our region, this is probably very important.What plans are there in this direction, what projects will be implemented?

— Indeed, the law on international territories of advanced development has come into force, it keeps up with the times.When it is necessary to make a breakthrough in technological development, the state takes all measures.This is one of the ways to create useful cooperation with foreign partners, to create enterprises with foreign companies in order to produce high-tech products.We have plans to create several such territories.

We have, for example, a project to create a plant for the production of solar panels.This is a direct request from our region in connection with the problem of energy shortages.And we know that in our beloved Trans-Baikal Territory there are 300 sunny days a year.And not to use this resource given to us by nature is generally blasphemous, I think.Therefore, we will support projects of this type.

We have ideas for creating a 500 MW station, and subsequently 1 GW.That is, to increase solar generation.Yes, this will not fully solve the needs of today and tomorrow of our large enterprises in mining, but it will be able to cover the needs of smaller enterprises.And we shouldn’t forget about them either, they are also part of our economy.In general, the list of what can be produced at MTOR is quite large.We will be actively looking to see which investors can cooperate to create some useful products.

Source: https://75.ru/news/437993