Belarus has finalised the modernisation of a container terminal in Brest. Located on the border with Poland, the city serves as a key entry point into Europe for rail freight traffic from China.
The construction work on the Brest–Belarus Customs Service-3 commenced in early 2024. Over two years later, the modernisation is complete. The facility now occupies 15 hectares, out of which 2.2 hectares function as a container terminal, reports the Belarusian state media BELTA.
Belarus built a “full-fledged transshipment hub” during the modernisation process. Its design allows for “unhindered container transshipment from one gauge to the other”. At the Polish-Belarusian border, rail freight is transferred from broad-gauge infrastructure, common in Belarus and Russia, to standard-gauge infrastructure, commonly used in Europe.
Number one China–Europe location
The Brest-3 terminal now has 1.2 kilometres worth of rail infrastructure. It has a 220-metre long loading area, which allows 21 wagon transfers on each gauge. The storage area can hold 945 containers at a time.
“Here we can handle transhipments, coupling, and multimodal transportation, which is particularly advantageous given the current situation, where Brest is the number one location for the Europe-Asia logistics route”, commented the general director of the Belarusian Belarusian Customs Service, Dmitriy Kovalenok.
“We lacked capacity, so we invested in both access roads and ramps. In other words, we’ve significantly increased our capabilities. What’s unique is that here we can store goods, label them, transport them by road, and reload them onto rail. Depending on the mode of transport available, we can adapt various configurations and modalities on the fly to reduce logistics costs. Its main advantage is its multifunctionality, something Brest hasn’t had on such a scale before”.
2019 modernisation
In 2019, Belarus also modernised the Brest-North container terminal, which is located just beside the Brest-3 terminal. The container area was expanded to five hectares and a loading area of 1,700 square metres. The investment cost 10 million dollars at the time. Belarusian media did not specify the investment of the Brest-3 modernisation.