Are Eastern Baltic Ports the drivers of Eurasian trade?

Abstract

Abstract Since “Belt and Road initiative” (BRI) has been launched, the major volume of academic studies focus on the consideration of Eurasian land and maritime transport routes. Experts on Chinese foreign policy and geopolitical strategy emphasize possible positive and negative aspects of the initiative for the states involved. The business and political circles from Eastern Baltic Sea region are looking for possible ways to attract cargo to its ports. Yet, the possible transformations of Chinese foreign trade flows in the context of BRI are now under academic consideration. We focus on the evaluation of ports’ possibilities to handle Chinese cargo. The key issues of our study include the choice of cargo transportation routes and opportunities to attract Chinese investment to expand port and logistics infrastructure. The methodology of the research is based on statistical data analysis for the further comparison of transport routes. Our empirical results demonstrate that Eastern Baltic Sea ports can attract little part of Chinese trade flows.