The Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure has approved the size of the discount on the cost of transporting cargo to the ports of Berdiansk and Mariupol by rail.
Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Infrastructure Yurii Lavreniuk announced this at Ukrainian Ports Forum 2019, the CFTS correspondent reports.
"A decision to grant the ports of Mariupol and Berdiansk a 20% discount on rail freight tariff was made at a meeting of Ukrzaliznytsia’s tariff commission last week, which will enable the ports to compete with Black Sea ports, to which, unfortunately, potential cargo owners are beginning to switch from Sea of Azov ports," Lavreniuk said.
As the CFTS portal reported earlier, a preliminary agreement on a 20% discount on the cost of transportation of goods, particularly metal products, to the ports of Berdiansk and Mariupol by rail was reached at the end of March 2019.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure, the Ukrainian Railways joint-stock company (JSC Ukrzaliznytsia), and representatives of the Mariupol, Berdiansk, and Kherson seaports developed an algorithm for granting an additional discount on the tariffs for transportation of certain types of cargo to these ports in mid-March. At the time, the Ministry of Infrastructure underlined that because of aggressive actions by the Russian Federation, cargo flows to the ports of Mariupol and Berdiansk had decreased significantly because long delays of vessels had created a shortage of vessels and, consequently, the cost of freight had increased.
