Russia Closes Border With China to People, Not Goods
Only 3% to 4% of Russian-Chinese trade comes from people carrying goods through the checkpoints along the border in Siberia.
(Bloomberg) -- Russia shut its 4,209-kilometer (2,615 mile) land border with China to most passenger travel as the Kremlin seeks to prevent the spread of the deadly coronavirus from its biggest trading partner.
The Foreign Ministry warned Russians to refrain from non-essential travel to the country and limited visa issuance for Chinese citizens. Russian Railways JSC halted most train service to China, while maintaining the Moscow-Beijing route, and the government on Friday will decide on restricting passenger flights between the countries.
“As of now, not a single case of this dangerous disease has been confirmed,” Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said at a government meeting Thursday. “Still, we must protect our people.”
For now, the restriction affects the movement of people, not of freight, the government said later in response to a request for comment. Russian Railways issued an order a halt to freight trains but soon after rescinded it, Interfax reported. The company later said there are no restrictions on delivery and departure goods from China.
Only 3% to 4% of Russian-Chinese trade comes from people carrying goods through the checkpoints along the border in Siberia, according to Alexander Gabuev, the head of the Carnegie Moscow Center’s Russia in the Asia-Pacific program. The passenger ban won’t have much of an impact on bilateral trade, he said. Turnover reached $111 billion last year, according to China’s customs authorities.
AliExpress Russia, an e-commerce joint venture between Alibaba and Mail.ru that sends about $3 billion of goods from China to Russian customers a year, said business is continue to operate as usual.
The travel sector stands to be the biggest loser from the Kremlin’s emergency measures. The Association of Tour Operators of Russia said the ban on group tours from China could cost local travel agencies $100 million in the first quarter. More tourists from China visit Russia than any other nationality -- 1.3 million in the first nine months of 2019.
Moscow’s biggest airport, Sheremetyevo, serves as a key airline hub connecting Europe and China, ranking second in passenger traffic between the regions as of 2018, trailing only Beijing.
Almost two-thirds of Russia’s exports to China is fuel -- mostly crude oil flowing through pipelines, which is unlikely to be affected by border closures.
--With assistance from Stepan Kravchenko, Andrey Biryukov and Ilya Khrennikov.
To contact the reporters on this story: Jake Rudnitsky in Moscow at jrudnitsky@bloomberg.net;Evgenia Pismennaya in Moscow at epismennaya@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Torrey Clark at tclark8@bloomberg.net, Tony Halpin
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