The new transit line will also help to develop freight traffic from South Korea to Europe.

As Hyung Ho Kim, Vice-President of Hyundai Glovis, noted, “Today our enterprise has become a pioneer in the field of logistics in the north-eastern part of the Republic of Korea”. The goods arriving in Vladivostok from Busan, after transshipment, went to St. Petersburg, covering a distance of about 10 thousand kilometers in 10 days.

The car spare parts and components for the Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Rus plant, located in Sestroretsk (St. Petersburg) constitute the basis of the freight traffic. About 500 TEUs are planned to be delivered through the new route per month.

The parties are currently exploring the possibility of transporting transit goods through the railway network of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which would reduce the travel time even further. This seems possible in light of the positively developing political dialogue between the two countries and in connection with the admission of the Republic of Korea to the OSJD members.

As a result of the agreements between the two countries, on 30 November 2018 a survey train from the Republic of Korea, having crossed the Demilitarized Zone, proceeded to the DPRK with an objective to study the resumption of railway communication between the two countries and the need to modernize certain sections of the railway network to establish an effective transit railway connection of the Republic of Korea to the Trans-Korean route through the territory of the DPRK to the countries of Asia and Europe.

Staffed by 28 South Korean specialists, the test train was due to spend 18 days surveying the condition of the infrastructure of certain sections on the North-Korean railway network with a total length of more than 1,200 km.