During the minister's meeting with executive Vice Governor of Jiangsu Provincial Government Li Yunfeng, the Chinese part confirmed their determination to cooperate with Lithuania.
"I am confident that debates on the opportunities to develop the New Silk Road, which will be expressed at this conference, not only will contribute to the development of transport and logistics infrastructure in China and its neighbouring countries and regions, but also affect the development of movements in Eurasia," said Minister Sinkevicius.
According to him, rapidly growing commercial exchanges between Europe and China is one of the major indicators of the development of international transport system, and trade turnover which increased to nearly EUR 500 billion last year confirms that.
A few years ago, the Baltic region was already mentioned in China's strategy of One Belt, One Road. Lithuania is in a favourable geographic position and surrounded by approximately 750 million consumers from EU and CIS countries. In recent years, Lithuania's economy is the fastest growing in the EU: every year it grows by almost 3%.
In addition, on the first day of the visit in China, Sinkevicius met Vice Governor of Xinjiang Province Hasim Mutelif and discussed the possibility of setting up a joint working group on transport collaboration between Lithuania and Xinjiang, a region which has a population of 23 million people.
"One of the main objectives of the cooperation with China is to contribute to the implementation of the New Silk Road Strategy. Xinjiang is actively involved in the national program of the Silk Road, therefore, the development of cooperation with this province of China in very important for Lithuania," said the minister.
During the meeting, the parties discussed the possibility of exporting goods from Xinjiang to Europe through Lithuanian territory and development of the project Sun.
Currently, the train Sun runs between Lithuania and Kazakhstan, however, goods from China are needed in order to increase its competitiveness. The authority of Xinjiang support Lithuania's initiative to extend the route of the train to the city that seeks a status of multimodal transportation centre – Urumqi (PRC).
Lithuania expects that Urumqi will become the Eastern gate of transportation for China and other Eastern countries, and Kaunas together with the port of Klaipeda (Lithuania) and logistics terminals will be the intermodal transportation hub in the West or China's western gateway to Europe.
It is planned, that in the future, a redistribution centre for cargo coming from China could be established in the Baltic region and form industrial clusters as well as provide logistics services.
In addition, the delegation led by Minister Sinkevicius in Xinjiang visited the renovated railway station and logistics terminal.
