ST. PETERSBURG, November 21. /TASS/. Freight carriers have changed their routes after the shutdown of border crossings between Finland and Russia, President of the National Association of Freight Motor Transport Gruzavtotrans Vladimir Matyagin told TASS.
Freight transportation between Finland and Russia halted after closing of checkpoints on the border with Russia, he noted.
"When wheels are not rolling, this is loss of profit for carriers. Therefore, when this situation started, we redirected vehicles to other routes. No problems arise with freight carriers because the route loss is compensated by other destinations, for example, domestic ones. These are Moscow and new territories. If we take foreign routes, these are Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Turkey, and Iran. These routes will have greater demand now. All the South Asian routes are loaded to date," Matyagin noted.
Prior to closing of checkpoints, logistics of freight transportation was implemented with transshipment on the Finnish-Russian border, the expert said. It becomes impossible but the loss of this destination did not affect the internal market. "This is not a problem for our economy because certain kinds of goods are substituted in terms of import or brought in via parallel import, for example, from Turkey. However, this is a catastrophe for such small economy as Finland has," he added.
Finland closed four checkpoints on the border with Russia at night from November 17 to 18.