A new era of trade cooperation between China, Mongolia and the Russian Federation was launched in Moscow on 8 December 2016, when the governments of the three countries signed the Intergovernmental Agreement on International Road Transport along the Asian Highway Network. By signing the Agreement, each country agreed to give the other two countries traffic rights for international road transport operation on the parts of Asian Highway routes AH3 and AH 4 connecting their respective territories.

To demonstrate the benefits of the initiative, in August 2016, the transport ministries of the three countries concerned organized a pilot run of a nine-truck convoy that travelled the 2,150-km distance in seven days from the Chinese port of Tianjin to Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia and then on to Ulan-Ude on the shores of Lake Baikal in the Russian Federation.