The role of road freight transport in ensuring international trade of the EAEU countries

Regionalization and digitalization are significant factors in the development of international transport, including road transport. Liberalization of mutual trade, creation of a single customs territory and gradual elimination of non-tariff barriers within integration unions have generally led to an increase in the speed of international movement of goods. Today the EAEU is the most advanced integration project in the post-Soviet space. Transport as an area of Eurasian integration occupies a special place in the integration process due to the spatial characteristics of the association and its transit potential. It is expected that the common transport space (CTS) will be created without exceptions and limitations by 2025. Trade relations of EAEU member states are provided by all modes of transport (including pipeline transport, but this study focuses only on long-distance modes of transport). In terms of countries, road transport plays the largest role in transport support of foreign trade in the Kyrgyz Republic, and the smallest role in the Russian Federation, where other modes of transport are more involved, mainly sea and rail transport. At the same time, the Russian and Kazakh segments account for more than 95 % of the freight transportations of the EAEU countries carried out by road transport, which determined the relevance of the research topic. This investigation presents the role of road transport in ensuring the international transport of goods of the EAEU countries. The results of the study, aimed at determining the role of road transport in the provision of international freight transportation of EAEU countries, were obtained through an empirical analysis of the road transport industry. The analysis identified the key features of the development of this segment in the EAEU countries. In turn, the assessment of the place of road transport in ensuring foreign trade of EAEU countries was carried out on the basis of two quantitative indicators of transport as an industry - the volume of freight traffic and cargo turnover.