Finland-China freight rail link important for Nordic cooperation: minister

Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari on Saturday underlined the importance of the freight rail connection between Finland and China for Nordic cooperation.

Skinnari said so when commenting on Finnish national radio Yle the discussions at the Arctic Frontier conference in Tromso, Norway this week.

The minister said that Norwegian and Swedish industries are interested in cooperation in logistics with Finland. "This cooperation has now been prepared. They want to deliver products to China and Russia on rail, and now we have this channel for fast delivery of products down to China by train."

Noting said that it is strategically important that Nordic countries "view together the transportation alternatives", Skinnari said "when speed in transports to East matters, then Finland is the solution."

He said the trains are important especially for highly developed products that have to be transported fast.

Train services between southeastern Finnish city of Kouvola and northwestern Chinese city of Xi'an were opened in 2017.

Jukka Holsa, Vice President Logistics at UPM Forest Products Company, said earlier to Finnish media that UPM follows with interest the development of the rail route connecting Kouvola to China. He said UPM has used the rail route a few times so far and everything went according to the plans.

"Our expectations and demands were met," he said.

In Kouvola, a freight terminal is under construction that will be able to handling the loading and offloading of trains more than a kilometer long. The city has said that the terminal will serve the connections both to China and Russia.

Besides Kouvola, container rail freight from Finland to China is also handled at Vuosaari, Helsinki, by logistics company John Nurminen.