A Chinese route will be established across the border in Zabaikalsk.
On November 2, Vladimir Putin signed a law approving the agreement with China on the construction of a second 1,435 mm main track on the Zabaikalsk-Manchuria section.
The parties signed the document in Beijing on May 20, and in October it was approved by the State Duma and the Federation Council.
Russian railways are ready to carry more trains through the crossing than the Chinese side accepts, and the construction of Chinese standard gauge should equalize the capacity of the sides.
"The new route should eliminate unevenness and increase the carrying capacity of the crossing by more than 75%," says Pavel Ivankin, president of the Transportation and Infrastructure Center.
Work on the Russian side has already begun and should be completed by the end of 2026, and China will finish its part in early 2027, said Senator Andrei Denisov.
By 2030, according to the calculations of the Ministry of Transportation, the hub's capacity will increase to 39 million tons per year, and the volume of traffic will reach almost 50 pairs of trains per day.
In the first half of 2026, 11.2 million tons of cargo passed through the railway crossing, 4% more than a year earlier, and 236.3 thousand trucks passed through the roadblock in nine months.
According to Dmitry Romansky, CEO of the ZaContainers training center, for 20 years the crossing "became the main land gateway for trade between the two countries."