Belt and Road spurs high-level cooperation

Model projects

Some model projects under the BRI, such as the Heihe-Blagoveshchensk cross-border highway bridge, the Tongjiang-Nizhneleninskoye cross-border railway bridge and other boundary river bridges, have been opened for traffic, while cross-border logistics and transport channels have been further expanded.

The Heihe-Blagoveshchensk cross-border highway bridge is the first China-Russia highway bridge, which stretches from Heihe, a border city in Northeast China's Heilongjiang province, to the Russian city of Blagoveshchensk spanning the Heilongjiang River.

The highway bridge, in its original conception, was meant to not only enable transit of goods, but also lead to new economic zones and facilitate passenger travel between Heihe, home to around 1.3 million, and Blagoveshchensk, with a population of around a quarter-million.

Along with the opening of the Heihe-Blagoveshchensk highway bridge in June 2022, China and Russia will also set up a cross-border economic cooperation zone to facilitate comprehensive cooperation and further opening-up between China and Russia, and to meet the rising demand for trade.

"The Blagoveshchensk-Heihe bridge has special symbolic significance in today's disunited world. It will become yet another thread of friendship linking the people of Russia and China," said Yury Trutnev, Kremlin's envoy to Russia's Far East.

The China-Russia highway bridge facilitates trade between Northeast China and Russia's Far East region adding to the existing channels linking the two countries, including railways, inland waterways, sea freight and pipelines, said Zhang Hong, an associate research fellow at the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.