Dossiers BRICS Silk Road / Route de la soie Back to previous selection / Retour à la sélection précédente Russia and China Form Joint Venture To Build Second Bridge over Amur River 8 April 2016 EIRNS—According to a report in Kommersant, cited by Russia Beyond The Headlines (RBTH) today, a Russian-Chinese joint venture known as Amur Heilongjiang, will construct a rail-and-road bridge over the Amur River connecting Russia’s Blagoveshchensk, located in its southeastern corner, with Heihe in China. Construction of the bridge will commence in April and is expected to cost 18.8 billion rubles ($266 million). These two towns are now connected by ferry, limiting the trade volume. The construction of the bridge is expected to take about three years. Shipments by road should begin in 2019, with the opening of the rail line following in 2020. Amur Heilongjiang is building another bridge, begun in 2013, to connect the Russian town Nizhneleninskoye with Tongjiang, China. Its container capacity will be comparable with that of the Blagoveshchensk-Heihe bridge, Interfax reported last month. The Blagoveshchensk-Heihe bridge project also involves building a container terminal in Blagoveshchensk. Traffic on the new route at the initial stage is expected to reach 100,000 to 150,000 twenty-foot-equivalent units, with the possibility of a significant increase during the next several years. According to experts, the construction of the bridges will lead to a high growth of cross-border trade volume. The combined rail and automobile bridge will be used primarily to move Russian soy, corn, oil, and other commodities to China, according to the Ministry of Transport and Construction of the Amur region, Interfax reported.