Six countries: Germany, Poland, Belarus, Russia, Mongolia, and China, may establish new regular cargo/container railroad between Europe and Asia. The road that would employ the old railroad from the famous Trans-Siberian rail would cover a distance of almost 10,000 km in less than 20 days, or the half of the time needed for the sea cargo ships to move containers from the Chinese ports to the Western Europe. Furthermore, the new road will eliminate the security dangers linked to the Suez Canal. Another important aspect of the road is that it will make unnecessary the alternative 'New Silk Road' that would have linked Europe and China through the Caspian Sea and the Central Asia. Each of the main actors in this new railroad will benefit enormously from the project. Besides the trade aspect, it will make possible general economic development in some of the least developed parts of Asia (Northwest China, Mongolia, and Southern Siberia).

We live in a world of ever-growing trade flows. For reasons which explanation goes beyond the topic of this article, China has emerged as leading provider of consumer goods for the economically most-developed nations. Approximately a half of those who live in the countries collectively known as the 'golden billion' live in Europe, the remaining half being divided between North America and East Asia. The bilateral trade between China and Germany alone, the most developed European nation, is approximately $100 billion a year. There are no indications that this trade will go down at any time soon, on the contrary. Thus far, sea cargo ships transport the bulk of this trade, and the main trade road is going through the Suez Canal. The cargo ships take the distance between China and Europe in approximately 40 days. There are no indicators that this time can be shortened; there are no indicators too that the Northwest and the Northeast passages (through Arctic) can soon become viable alternatives for the sea cargo ships.

The Suez Canal by its monopoly position between Europe and Asia represents a constant threat to the world trade. Everybody familiar with the modern history knows that the canal was unilaterally closed for quite some time by Egypt in the late 1960s. The lack of alternative but equal in value trade roads makes this history a threatening reminder. So it wasn't surprising when Europe, with some U.S. backing, in early 1990s decided to study for possible alternative trade roads to Asia through the Central Asian former Soviet republics (Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan, among the others). The project was called the 'New Silk Road' and basically represented a whole new cascade of transportation infrastructures (highways, seaways and railroads) going from the Black Sea to the western border of China. This project, going in an almost straight line from west to east, would have bypassed Russia from south and Iran from north. At the same time, Russia always offered an alternative passage thought Siberia, using to some degree the existing infrastructures of the Trans-Siberian railroad.

The main actors in this new project through Siberia will benefit enormously if and when it becomes reality. In terms of trade, China will get alternative road for its enormous and ever-growing exports, and Germany will become the first major destination, bypassing the other European seaports. The main beneficiaries, however, will be China, Mongolia, and Russia; the increased trade will boost the regional economic development in some of the least developed regions of these countries. To illustrate this point we need to go no further than North America which enormous landmass outside the coastal areas has started being developed only after the railroad went from east to west in the late 19th c.

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