Features of China's railway transport in the Eurasian transit space in the context of COVID-19
At the beginning of 2020, the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic had the most negative impact on the global economy. In Western countries, due to the decline in business activity, the demand for Chinese goods has sharply decreased, what has led to a reduction in the volumes of container transportation what affected vast majority of global transit deliveries as well as timeliness of transport schedules. However, in the third quarter of 2020 many countries (following China) began to ease quarantine measures. Due to the deferred demand’s restoration as well as to a sharp increase in Chinese exports’ terms, world transit routes were not ready for a large-scale increase in traffic volumes, what provoked a sharp increase in spot rates of transportation tariffs and sea freight and an acute shortage of containers. By early 2021, on the background of increasing transit volumes from China to the countries of Europe and the United States, appeared the problem of delivering empty containers back to China, and the cost of transportation from China reached in some directions a 12-year high. According to Chinese logistics experts, the preferential tariff policy measures, introduced by the Chinese government, will encourage national producers to significant increase of container volumes and sea cargo carriers to return empty containers from foreign terminals. Together with the emerging revival of world trade, it will help to restore global supply chains and increase the volume of demand for international land and sea transit in the medium term. Due to the economic processes caused by the pandemic, the global transport market has faced with an unusual phenomenon. The 2020 COVID-19 epidemic, paradoxically, has stimulated the growth of the continental Eurasian railway transit container’s turnover in accordance with objective needs of the European market concerning volumes and speed of cargo delivery. The shortage of containers, which gave rise to a dramatic increase in the cost of freight, has leveled the main advantage of international sea cargo transportation, namely, the low cost of transit. In this regard, the question arises: is it worth expecting a new take-off of the railway industry in China and in the transit countries of land cargo?