The Amur shipping company’ activities to ensure river transportation between Russia and China in the late XX - early XXI centuries

The paper examines the process of organizing the activities of the Amur River Shipping Company (ARP) to ensure cargo and passenger transportation between Russia and China in the Far East in the late XX - early XXI centuries. The territorial scope of the study covers a part of the south of the Russian Far East bordering China along the Amur, namely the Amur Region, the Jewish Autonomous Region (JAO), part of the Khabarovsk Region (before the confluence of the Amur with the Ussuri River) and border areas of Heilongjiang Province. The subject of the study was the economic activity of the ARP to ensure interaction with the border territories of China in the Far East in the context of the socio-economic reforms in Russia and reforms in the field of transport that took place during the study period. The work uses historical research methods - systemic and structural-functional analysis, synthesis, description. Unpublished archival documents are introduced into scientific circulation, covering the quantitative and qualitative indicators of the work of the ARP in the study period. With the warming of relations between Russia and China and the opening of the Far Eastern borders, ensuring ties between the two countries became the task of the ARP. During this period, the ARP itself experienced difficulties in its economic activities in the context of the unfolding global socio-economic reforms in Russia. With the violation of the logistics established in the Soviet period, the company had to reorient its capacities to the opened foreign markets. Due to the geographical proximity to the Amur River ports, China is becoming the main trading partner of the Russian Far Eastern frontier territories. ARP directs cargo flows to Chinese river ports on the Amur and its tributaries, and is included in the transportation of Russian tourists. However, the difficult economic situation, chronic mutual debts of enterprises of all levels, the depreciation of the fleet and the underdevelopment of the infrastructure of Russian customs and checkpoints did not allow the ARP to radically improve its performance, the shipping company was constantly on the verge of survival. Only the Blagoveshchensk port of the ARP, where a private company operated, had a stable profit from river transportation with China. During the period under study, ARP repeatedly changed its form of ownership and in 2008 was sold to the RFP Group holding.