Freight-forwarding by rail in Russia increased 3.6% last year to 1.394 billion tons, Russian Railways (RZD) materials indicate.

Domestic freight handling increased 2% to 850.8 million tons, as international carriage rose 6.1% to 543.7 million tons. Exports weighed in at 400.0 million tons (up 3.9%), imports at 112.5 million tons (up 13.7%), and transit freightage at 30.3 million tons (up 9.3%).

Growth in transportation gra-dually slowed over the last year. It was 3.4% in January-November, 3.5% in January-October and January-September, 3.8% in January-August, 4.2% in January-July, 4.4% in January-June, 4.7% in January-May, 5.5% in January-April, 7% in January-March, 9.7% in January-February, and 15.6% just in January. Things began to pick up again in December.

The export of ores increased 27.9% and the export of ferrous metals 31.5% in 2011.

The lifting of Russia’s embargo on grain exports saw the year end with exports up 42.9% after an 85.5% drop in the first half of the year.

The transportation of hydrocarbons was up 0.5% at 271.95 million tons (up 4.2% within Russia), as oil-cargo imports increased 34.8%.

As for coal, transit shipments were up 140% (though volume was insignificant at 1.2%). All in all, coal transport was up 4.4% at 337.24 million tons. While it was down 1.5% internally, it was up 12.2% on international routes.

RZD said earlier that freightage had increased by about 3% to 1.242 billion tons in 2011. The transportation of bituminous coal increased 3.5% to 296.2 million tons, of coke 2.8% to 12.9 million tons, of iron and manganese ore 8.8% to 110.9 million tons, of ferrous metals 1.1% to 73.5 million tons, of chemical and mineral fertilizers 2.3% to 46.5 million tons, of cement 3.5% to 34.5 million tons, of grain and milled product 10.5% to 20 million tons, of construction material 10.7% to 157.8 million tons, and of containers 12.5% to 20.3 million tons.