Russia has increasingly redirected cargo export flows to its own Baltic Sea ports leading Latvia to look for alternative potential sources of new transit business. One such important source is China.
At the same time, China has sought to establish trade links across Eurasia through the New Silk Road (NSR) initiative. The NSR aims to increase the frequency of train transit to Europe in order to: (i) decrease transport costs due to increased economies of scale; (ii) support manufacturing in the economically lagging western regions of China; and (iii) increase China’s geopolitical leverage over neighboring states in Central Asia.