Express rail link to boost China-Russia e-commerce

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2015-06-24

Vladimir Putin speaks at the St Petersburg International
 Economic Forum, June, 19. (Photo/China News)

Russia is going to launch a China-Russia express rail line for postal services to shorten the package delivery time between the two countries, reports China's state newswire Xinhua.

This new project was announced by the deputy director-general of Russian Post, Aleksey Skatin, at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum.

Skatin said China and Russia are major partners in e-commerce and that a faster rail link connecting the two countries would be desirable. Russian Post said Russians last year made 80 million online purchases, 80% of which were from China.

Dmitry Strashnov, CEO of Russian Post, suggested the creation of an online mechanism for people to report the contents of their packages instead of physically taking them to the post office, which will reduce delivery time to just 14 days. If this can happen, Strashnov said cross-border postal services will increase tenfold.

Russia has great potential for e-commerce as 70% of the public use the internet but the internet only accounts for 2%-3% of retail sales.

Some local specialists said sales in Russia will grow sharply as Chinese businesses make everything very cheap, enabling more people in the country, especially those in rural areas, to buy them.