The volume of transportation of grain cargoes on River Dnipro has increased by 10% in 2016, compared with 2015.

Yaroslav Levytskyi, a special grain transport market analyst at the ProAgro company, announced this to CFTS.

This increase was due to the introduction of weight and dimension controls on roads, as a result of which the cost of trucking has increased by 50-60% and the distance through which cargo transportation by road without overloading is cost-effective compared with transportation by rail has reduced to 150 kilometers.

As a result, grain traders have been forced to seek alternative ways of delivering cargoes to ports. Constant shortages of grain wagons and the higher cost of transportation by rail have resulted in transportation by river being considered as more of an alternative.

The Ukrrichflot shipping company told the CFTS portal that it began cooperating with some major shippers on regular transportation of agricultural goods by river – both in bulk and in containers – this year. However, according to the company, there has been no sharp increase in the volume of cargo transportation on the river.