Russian Railways, Japanese transport ministry on track to implement project on transport link between Sakhalin, Hokkaido

SOCHI, February 28. /TASS/. Russian Railways and Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism are on track to set up a workgroup for developing the project of a transport link between the two countries, First Vice-President of Russia’s railway monopoly Alexander Misharin told TASS on the sidelines of the Russian Investment Forum in Sochi on Tuesday. "We’ve discussed the issue several times at meetings with Japan’s (Land) Infrastructure, Transport (and Tourism) Ministry this year, and agreed to set up a workgroup to start implementing the project," he said. According to Misharin, the project can be implemented after Sakhalin is connected to the Russian mainland. Russian Railways and the Transport Ministry are going to submit the project’s pre-investment feasibility study to the government in the nearest future, he said. Earlier Russia’s Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov said that the project of a direct corridor between Russia and Japan would require budgetary funding of at least 75% of the total costs. The corridor is "a project for next decade," he added. According to Sokolov, Russia’s Far East is located in a zone of high seismic risks where construction of tunnels is prohibited according to local safety standards. It is also important to assess the potential amount of transit cargo flows from Japan to Europe and from Europe to Japan via Russia to start the implementation of the project, Sokolov said. Director General of the Institute for Research on Railway Transport Pavel Ivankin estimates the cost of a direct corridor between Russia and Japan at around 1 trillion rubles. He expects the construction of links between Sakhalin and mainland Russia, and Sakhalin and Hokkaido to begin simultaneously and take from three to five years including exploration and engineering works. Vice-President of Russian Railways Vyacheslav Pavlovsky told TASS earlier that the construction of a permanent link between Sakhalin and the mainland may be worth 400 bln rubles. Read more