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Being selected to participate in the UN program for developing world transport corridors, the Far East Shipping Company, or FESCO, launched in November a demonstrative "door-to-door" delivery of containers from Pusan, South Korea, to the city of Taganrog in southern Russia, claiming the delivery will take 16 days.

On November 10 in Pusan FESCO’s ship took on board containers with spare parts for the Hyundai car assembling plant in Taganrog and two days later the ship anchored in at the Vostochny port in the Russian city of Nakhodka. After smoothly passing customs procedures the containers departed for Tanganrog on November 15, a press statement from FESCO reported at www.fesco.ru. According to the statement, the delivery which is to take 16 days will be closely monitored by United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific, or UN ESCAP.

The UN organizing committee for the project in developing world transport corridors decided to put FESCO’s delivery capabilities to trial along this transport corridor and assess the organization of the shipment lines all the way from Pusan to Taganrog, most of which goes along the Russian Trans Siberian Railway, the statement said. The project is design to boost cargo shipment via the Trans Siberian Railway.

By way of the test shipment the UN experts hope to obtain data on total delivery time as well as delivery time to separate legs of the shipping route, cost of delivery, and also timing through and cost of customs clearance.

FESCO, specializing in sea shipments, started railway deliveries in 2004 when it established a joint venture, Russkaya Troika, working as equal partners with state monopoly Russian Railways.
Russia’s container market, currently estimated at 2 million container shipments per year, is projected to grow three or fourfold by 2010, expanding to between 12 million and 14 million containers over the following three or four years, FESCO’s director Yevgeny Ambrosov was reported as saying. According to him, Vladivostok-based FESCO aims to merge its sea and railway assets to become the nation's first "door-to-door" shipper.

FESCO is known to be controlled by the Industrial Investors holding company. The company has invested a record $657 million this year, forking out more than one-half of the sum for the purchase of railway assets and shares in container terminals in Russia’s ports.