Russia Expands the Khabarovsk Priority Development Zone for the Milkan Iron-Ore Cluster: Investment Above ₽667 Billion, With a Planned 180 km Railway
The Russian government has expanded the boundaries of the Khabarovsk priority development area (ASEZ), creating the conditions for a large mining and metallurgical cluster. Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed the decree.
The land added lies in the Tuguro-Chumikansky district of Khabarovsk Krai and is needed for the cluster based on the Milkan iron-ore occurrence. Total investment in the project is expected to exceed ₽667 billion, creating about 3,200 jobs.
Under the published project plans, the initiator, Milkan LLC, is linked to the A-Property group, which controls the Elga coal complex and develops projects in Russia's Far East. The project envisages a processing plant handling 54 million tonnes of ore a year, producing up to 16 million tonnes of direct-reduction pellets with an iron content of up to 67.5 per cent, together with a private railway of about 180 kilometres and a specialised bulk terminal on the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk. The complex is targeted to enter operation at the end of 2032. The initiator signed an implementation agreement with the Far East and Arctic Development Corporation and the Khabarovsk Krai government at the 2025 Eastern Economic Forum.
Priority development areas are a special economic regime Russia uses in the Far East and other regions, offering tax and other preferences to attract investment. The Milkan project is the same investment group's second large resource-export development on the Sea of Okhotsk coast, after the Elga coal complex.
(Source: Government of Russia)
Source: Government of Russia
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于俄罗斯 Khabarovsk 的黑龙江（阿穆尔河）河畔（资料图）。Czochralski 摄，CC BY 3.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: The Amur River at Khabarovsk, Russia (file photo). By Czochralski, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
