Poland’s biggest port, the Port of Gdansk, has signed a letter of intent with the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority to open up a new alternative transport corridor between the Black Sea and the Baltic.
Containers will shift by rail between Gdansk and Odessa, Ukraine’s biggest port. The once a week rail service will also stop at Warsaw and Kiev en route.
“We have two prime objectives with the new Black Sea to the Baltic intermodal corridor,” Port of Gdansk president Lukasz Greinke said. “First, we want to provide an alternative route to Western Europe for trade coming from major inland Chinese cities like Xian along the Silk Road through Kazakhstan over the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan and Georgia and over the Black Sea to Ukraine. Second, we want to offer a new route for Ukrainian and Turkish companies wanting to transport cargo, such as roro, to Central and Western Europe and on to Scandinavia via Gdansk.”
The port is speaking with Turkish shipowners and freight forwarders about the benefits of the new corridor in terms of speed and efficiency.
