OREANDA-NEWS. February 22, 2008. Far Eastern Transport Group (DVTG) and Finnish Railways have launched a container train service between Kotka in Finland and Tuchkovo in Russia.

They plan to operate the service on a regular basis, following the opening of a container terminal Tuchkovo in the Moscow area.

The new circular route Kotka to Tuchkovo to Kotka aims to develop the freight traffic from western Europe to Russia and back to Finland.

Freight forwarder DVTG has seen the volume of its container traffic increase by almost nine times from 16,300 TEU to 146,000 TEU between 2003 and 2007. The growth in volume was achieved due to the geographical expansion of its own fleet use, as well as the quantitative increase in the rolling stock.

"We try to focus both on the development of the logistic infrastructure in Russia and CIS and investing heavily in the development of our own rolling stock. The effect has declared itself. We plan to continue developing this sector in future," said DVTG chairwoman Raisa Parshina.

DVTG owns more than 2,400 fitting platforms and 8,000 containers. The company is among the three largest Russian rail operators. Clients include the largest Russian, Korean, Chinese and European transport companies, industrial and trading companies such as RusAl, Yakutugol, Rosneft, Lukoil, Korus, Sinotrans, PetroChina, Woojin, Green Logistics, HMM, and ATL-Finland.