The facility aims to capture traffic between the major economies in the Baltic and Scandinavia area, and Russia, central Europe and the central Asian states.

Both partners hope to offer their customers multimodal international transportservices via Riga and gradually shift more containers to rail.

DB Schenker director Karl Nutzinger said: "It is the first cooperation between DB Schenker Logistics and TransContainer in eastern Europe.

“It will allow us to offer our customers more attractive combined services."

International freight will be consolidated at the Riga Terminal of the DB Schenker, where containers will be transferred between rail and road onto wagons able to use Russia’s broad gauge railway.

Co-operation with TransContainer includes the use of their containers beyond the borders of Latvia.

Customs formalities will also be dealt with directly on site.

DB Schenker said this would reduce the waiting times at borders compared with transport by truck, with freight trains able to clear the border between Latvia and Russia within hours, while trucks can take several days of waiting in traffic jams to enter Russia.

The two companies have also agreed to intensify their cooperation in the chemicals transport segment.

The parties have signed a Letter of Intent stating their intention to increase the containerized transport of chemicals to, from and inside Russia, a strategy which is ultimately aimed at securing the market leadership in this segment for both parties.