Moscow agrees to fund access channel to Bronka near St Petersburg

RUSSIA has agreed to finance the building of an access channel to the St Petersburg terminal of Bronka on the south coast of the Gulf of Finland with construction to start on the public-private project near Lomonosov in 2013.

The proposed Marine Multipurpose Complex Bronka (MMPK Bronka) will comprise a container terminal on a 107-hectare site, a ro-ro terminal covering 57 hectares and a logistics centre on a 42-hectare site.

The container terminal will have five berths and the rolling cargo terminal will have four berths. The first phase of the Bronka port will have an initial capacity of 1.45 million TEU and 260,000 units of ro-ro cargo annually. The facility's container throughput is expected to increase to 1.9 million TEU.

The development comes after Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree, "On Amendments to the Federal Target Programme "Modernisation of Transport System of Russia Sea Transport."

The government will fund the building of the access channel, while private investors are funding the building of the terminals and piers.

Overall, private investment in the project is expected to total RUB43.7 billion (US$1.4 billion) by the time the terminal is commissioned, and federal investment is projected at RUB15.2 billion.