China continues to solidify its position as the world’s factory and pushes for faster land connections with Western Europe.

The December 1, 2017 issue of Eurasian Business Briefing reports that additional progress has been made for the development of a 300 km per hour high speed rail link running from China to Moscow.

The latest advance:  Kazakhstan and Russia have agreed to a route from Moscow to Aktynol which is close to the dry port of Khorgos of the Kazakh-Chinese border.

Provisionally, the route will run through Almaty, Balkhash, Karaganda, Asana, Kokshetau, Petropavlovsk, Gorburnov, Chelyabinsk, Ekaterinburg, Kazan and on to Moscow.

It is expected that the project will take 20 years to complete but work will only start after a working group completes a detailed feasibility study for the project.

China has agreed to advance US $7 billion for the high-speed corridor, and a German consortium whose members include Siemens, Deutsche Bank and Deutsche Bahn have put up more than US $3 billion for the Moscow-Kazan section.  Construction is expected to begin in 2018.

Photo:  Eurasian Business Briefing of December 1, 2017