Korean engineer Hyundai E&C is planning to invest up to $540m in the expansion of the Slavyanka port in the Russian Far East, the Russian Far East Investment Promotion Agency (IPA) has announced.
Slavyanka is a small port about 30km southwest of Vladivostok, close to China’s landlocked Jilin Province and North Korea, and Russian planners see it as a potential hub for Chinese exports.
In 2017, Hyundai signed a memorandum of understanding with Berkut, a Russian logistics and tourism company, to cooperate on the port development. It has since commissioned a year-long feasibility study for a multipurpose terminal to handle containers and grain and an LNG terminal with a capacity to deal with 1 million tonnes a year.
The port expansion is part of the Primorye-2 transport corridor between Russia, China, Japan and Korea. Its main transit route will go between Jilin and Hunchun in China, to Kraskino and Zarubino in Russia.
The corridor was launched in 2017. IPA estimates that its cargo base potential is about 23 million tonnes of grain and 15 million tonnes of containerised cargo by 2030.
Leonid Petukhov, general director of IPA, commented: "We expect that Korea will benefit from the project by getting access to the Russian market, while Russia can achieve some modernisation in the service sector."
Primorye-2 is one of two transport corridors between China and the Russian Far East, providing the former’s northeastern provinces with the shortest route to Primorsky Krai, Russia.
The port expansion should add about $5.9bn to the local economy, according to IPA estimates.
Image: Slavyanka port (IPA)
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