S. L. SAZONOV, Candidate of Economic Sciences Institute of the Far East of the Russian Academy of Sciences Keywords: Trans-Siberian Railway, international transit corridor, transit potential, transport infrastructure, United Russian Transport Highway At the beginning of the XXI century. The Asia-Pacific region has become one of the key zones actively involved in global geopolitics. The region has become a busy crossroads where various economic interests intersect and through which strategically important transport links pass. The process of global globalization is accompanied by the expansion of interstate economic ties, the growth of trade turnover and the scale of scientific and technical cooperation, and the involvement of new trade markets in the turnover. All this cannot be done without appropriate changes in the national and international transport infrastructure. In 2013, the total cost of cargo transportation on the Europe - Asia-Pacific route exceeded $700 billion. Every year, about 10 million containers (more than 1 billion tons of cargo) move between the EU and Asia-Pacific countries, about 98% of this flow is transported by foreign sea fleets through foreign ports, bypassing the territory of Russia. Transportation of up to 15% of Euro-Asian transit cargo via Russian communications can bring the Russian Federation more than $15 billion. per year [1]. However, currently transit through Russia accounts for only 0.2% of the existing trade turnover between the countries of Europe and Asia, i.e. only 5-7% of the transit potential of the Russian Federation is used, which brings the country less than $1 billion. per year [2]. During the Soviet era, revenues only from the transit of goods in the direction of Asia-Europe annually amounted to more than $10 billion [3]. The advantage of the geographical location of the Russian Federation makes it possible to open a direct path between the zones of origin and absorption of the world trade cargo flow. Since the routes ... Read more