Zamiin Uud, Mongolia

The village of Zamiin Uud on Mongolia’s frontier with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) constitutes a crucial intermodal transport node on the intercontinental route linking China with Europe. Here in the middle of the Gobi Desert, high volumes of freight must undergo either rail-to-rail or road-to-rail trans-shipment.

Rail-to-rail transfers are necessitated by the fact that the Chinese railway operates on a different gauge (wheel and track width) than do the Russian Railway and Mongolia’s affiliated Ulaan Bataar Railway (UBTZ). Therefore, freight must be transferred from one railway’s wagons to those of the other.

In name and in function, Zamiin Uud is Mongolia’s “Gateway”. Unfortunately, despite its economic and geopolitical importance, it has received little attention or resources. Increased demand for imports by the Mongolian economy coupled with growing Chinese transit trade overland to Russia and Europe has overwhelmed the trans-shipment system. The Government of Mongolia (GoM) is fully cognizant of this shortcoming which has recently reached crisis proportions due to congestion-induced paralysis of trade flows.

Crimson, through USAID’s Economic Policy Reform and Competitiveness (EPRC) Project in Mongolia, has been commissioned to conduct a feasibility assessment of a possible package of improvements to the logistics infrastructure. Several initiatives have been identified as technically and economically feasible. In addition, the analysis considers the prospects for Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in implementation and operations of selected interventions.