Our country will have the second official export gateway to the southern neighbor through its main railway. The construction of the Khangi railway has been completed this year. In 1956, when Mongolia signed a railway agreement with China, the first border railway crossing of Zamin-Uud-Ereen was established. The decision to build the second crossing, the Zuunbayan-Khangi railway, was made in March 2022 and was completed in November. The road, will be connected to China’s Mandal port, and Mongolia will now have two wide and narrow railway crossings to the south. Mongolia has been preparing to open the second railway border crossing for several years.
The key goal of the government’s railway transport policy of 2010 was to increase such crossings. In this legal document, when determining the development of Mongolian railways in terms of gauge, direction, and importance, the potential routes were the priority for the transportation of mining products, and the ports and their connecting routes. When the policy paper was amended in 2018, the Zuunbayan-Khangi route was added, and the preparations for the second railway crossing started then. In 2019, the heads of states of Mongolia, China, and Russia considered the route an important component of the Economic Corridor, and in the same year, the connection point of the Zuunbayan-Khangi railway was agreed upon at the level of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia and China. Back to the present, the Government of Mongolia has completed the construction of the rail route. The infrastructure has been solved comprehensively during the planning phase. Thus, the Zuunbayan-Khangi railway is now fully prepared to connect with China’s narrow gauge and broad gauge railway across the border of the two countries.
The complete construction of the infrastructure is completed to the extent that the border connection will be resolved within the framework of the railway agreement between the two countries. The Chinese side’s construction that will connect with the Zuunbayan-Khang railway is a 240 km Baotou-Mandal railway. The railway, which was to be built in 2017, opened in August 2021 and has already commenced steady operations. In other words, an electric railway station with a capacity of 20 million tonnes is already operational within 8 km from the Mongolian border. If the decision is made, the remaining 8 km of the road can be built by the Chinese side within a month. The only issue that remains is the decision of the governments of the two countries.
If the border connection is decided at a highlevel summit, the second railway crossing will be fully operational. This will cut the freight load on the main road by half. Mongolia’s railway capacity cannot cope with the current load, and as a result, export cargo has been piled up at Zamyn- Uud-Ereen port, which is the only export gateway at the moment.
The Zuunbayan-Khangi railway creates an opportunity to increase all cargo, whether it is transit, export, or import. O The construction of the ZuunbayanKhangi railway infrastructure did not end with just the rails. Necessary conditions for freight transport are already in place as the Concession did not neglect preparations and set out two solutions for transportation. The joint venture of “Mongoliantrans Line” and “Mongolian Trans Logistics” companies, which implemented the concession of the Zuunbayan-Khangi railway on a buildoperate-transfer basis, has its rolling stock. The company has 15 years of experience in the Mongolian railway sector, transporting the export of mining products with its railways and private rolling stock, and managing transport logistics. Based on this experience, the company expanded the country’s export capacity by 3-5 million tonnes, which is only the initial phase. The company also plans to deliver 12 million tonnes in the next three years. Furthermore, the legal environment is open for any company to freely travel its rolling stock and transport its cargo on the Zuunbayan-Khangi railway line.
Finally, wishing success to everyone involved in increasing Mongolia’s export output through railway ports, we are placing all the information on the Zuunbayan-Khangi railway in your hands.
