“Ukrzaliznytsia” (UZ), the monopoly state railway operator, together with consulting company Deloitte is working on a development strategy until 2030, which will be presented during the next quarter for public discussion, said a member of the supervisory board of UZ, presidential advisor on strategic issues Alexander Kamyshyn.
“I want business to understand, take part in its formation and then understand where this industry is moving. Because Ukrzaliznytsia is not just a company, it is an industry. And that is why this strategy will be discussed publicly and adopted publicly,” he said at the Infrastructure Day organized by the European Business Association in Kiev this week.
Kamyshyn also noted that together with the new team of the Ministry of Development of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure, a draft law on reforming the railroad industry was introduced, which gives seven years for this purpose.
At the same time, according to a member of the UZ nabsovet, who not so long ago led the railroad operator as head of the board, the process of reforming Ukrzaliznytsia continues now. He specified, in particular, that today the next two companies are next in line to be separated within the internal organizational structure of UZ.
“All the necessary amount of work that needs to be done at the level of Ukrzaliznytsia, in order to reform, will be done”, – said Kamyshyn.
He noted that he will be an active member of the supervisory board of UZ.
“For me, the main focus is to return the pace of development of the railroad and show everyone that the railroad can move fast and develop quickly,” – said the Presidential Advisor on strategic issues.
During the last week, the daily volume of grain export by rail decreased by 2-3 thousand tons per day on average – down to 108 thousand tons per day because of artificial delays in the registration of vessels by Russian representatives in inspection groups under the Joint Coordination Center in Istanbul and reducing the effectiveness of the “grain corridor”, said Valery Tkachev, Deputy Director of the department of commercial work UZ at a meeting with market participants on Thursday.
“If we compare the current daily average with a week ago, we can state a slight decrease in the average daily volume of grain transportation in the export direction: today we carry an average of 108 thousand tons per day, while a week ago – 110 thousand tons, mainly due to lower traffic volumes to sea ports,” – said Tkachev.
At the same time, he said, the volume of grain transportation in the direction of overland railroad crossings has increased on average by 1 thousand tons per day – up to almost 34 thousand tons per day.
In February (February 22) UZ already transported 2.37 million tons of grain for export.
Earlier Yuri Vaskov, deputy minister of reconstruction, said on Aljazeera English live broadcast that since October the efficiency of the “grain corridor” does not exceed 40% of the available export capacities.
On February 15, Ukraine issued a statement calling on the international community, particularly the United Nations and Turkey, as guarantors of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, to demand that Russia immediately stop its artificial delays and unblock commercial shipping to Ukrainian Black Sea ports.
The Ukrainian side notes that Russian representatives in the inspection teams under the Joint Coordination Centre in Istanbul have been systematically delaying for several months in a row the inspection of vessels transiting the Bosporus Strait to/from Ukrainian ports. Every day less than half of the planned 10 inspections usually take place. As a result, in the last three months alone the world was short 10 million tons of Ukrainian food, and the queue of ships waiting for inspection in the Bosporus exceeded 140 units.
Representatives of Ukraine noted that at the same time, Russia enjoys the opportunity of unimpeded commercial shipping from Russian Black Sea ports: the volume of traffic through Russian seaports in the Azov-Black Sea basin in 2022 was more than 250 million tons, which exceeded the figures in 2021.
