Ukraine sees great potential for cooperation with China on Silk Road: official

Ukraine sees a great potential for developing mutually beneficial cooperation with China under the Silk Road Initiative, a senior Ukrainian official said here on Friday.

"For China's central and western regions, which are quickly developing, this direction is more interesting than exports of goods through the ports. Thus, we believe that there is a huge potential in such cooperation," Eugene Kravtsov, Ukraine's First Deputy Infrastructure Minister, said during the Kiev International Economic Forum.

Ukraine, which targets to become an important link in the Silk Road chain, is now actively developing its infrastructure and continues the work on the project to connect Ukraine and China via a cargo train, Kravtsov said.

According to him, in the recent time, a great progress was achieved to lower the tariffs for cargo transportation on the Silk Road route via Ukraine to make it more competitive.

While in January, when Ukraine launched a test run of cargo train to China, the shipping cost of a 20-foot container was 6,500 U.S. dollars, now it stands at about 3,000 dollars, Kravtsov said.

On Jan. 15, Ukraine launched a cargo train from its south-western port of Illichivsk to China via the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, traversing Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, thus joining the Silk Road initiative. Endit