First quarter of 2026: trade turnover between China and Russia reached $61.2 billion, structural optimization of logistics corridors accelerates
2026-01-08
In the first quarter of 2026, bilateral trade between China and Russia reached US$61.2 billion, an increase of 14.7% year-on-year. Exports from China to Russia increased by 22%. Trade turnover exceeds the $200 billion mark for the third year in a row. The main volume of traffic still falls on the railway: of the 93 China-Europe freight train routes, a third reaches Russia. The border crossings of Suifenhe and Manchuria completed intellectual modernization. Road traffic in the western direction was overloaded for a long time, but with the introduction by the Russian side of the “import first, then clearance” principle, customs clearance time was reduced to 8 hours. In April 2026, test operation of the SPOT customs clearance system was launched in Russia, and in July new VAT rules come into force - “gray” customs clearance is rapidly leaving the market. Enterprises are reoriented to legal foreign warehouses, forming a comprehensive network of “warehousing + customs clearance + delivery.” The industry is transforming from a “transit model” to a “hub” model; the key trends are compliance, digitalization and interaction of multimodal channels.
