Russian Railways: roundwood transportation to the east grew by 35.8% in 2022

Alexey Shilo, Deputy Head of Russian Railways, reports that timber enterprises from the Northwestern Federal District previously oriented towards Europe have re-oriented their supplies of timber products to the east.

“Timber shipments to Far Eastern and East Siberian enterprises increased greatly within our eastern operating range: by 35.8%, including containers. We adopted a series of regulatory measures to prevent roundwood from leaving the country in order to incentivize more value-added wood processing. In 2022, this system stared working. Roundwood transportation to processing enterprises in the east increased by almost 36%,” Mr. Shilo emphasized. He added that the Northwestern Federal District ramped up export shipments of timber products to the east by 3 times, up to 1.1 million tons. The Central Federal District increased timber transportation in this direction by 3.8 times, up to 175,000 tons. The east-to-west export dropped by 90%. According to Mr. Shilo, 23 large enterprises transported a great amount of their timber products in the eastern direction for the first time in 2022.