The Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers decided at its meeting on November 6 to impose a ban on importation of used railcars from the Russian Federation from November 20.
This was announced by Ukraine’s Minister of Infrastructure Vladyslav Kryklyi, the CFTS portal reports.
“A decision was made in May 2019 to introduce a ban on import of obsolete rolling stock originating from the Russian Federation from March 1, 2020. More than 3,000 freight obsolete railcars were imported from the Russian Federation into Ukraine after the announcement that the ban will be introduced in March 2020. Today, the government made a decision to impose a ban on importation of such railcars from November 20, 2019. We should develop our economy, and not save the aggressor," Kryklyi said.
As the CFTS portal reported earlier, the postponement of the ban on importation of used freight wagons from the Russian Federation has led to a sharp increase in the import of these wagons from Russia and a reduction in orders from Ukrainian railcar manufacturers. "According to information from Ukrzaliznytsia, 4,207 used railcars were imported into Ukraine from January 2 to October 3, 2019 (90% of them from the Russian Federation), compared with 732 from January to May and 3,059 from June to October (i.e. after the official announcement that the ban would be imposed next year), i.e. 4.2 times more," said Olena Salikhova, secretary of the National Committee for Industrial Development. According to her, most of the 3,791 railcars that have been imported from Russia since the beginning of this year are grain carriers built in the period of 1975-1991, i.e. railcars that have reached the end of their service lives.
The Ukrainian government decided on May 15 this year to amend the list of goods prohibited from importation into Ukraine. A ban was imposed on importation of railcars from the Russian Federation into Ukraine, but its introduction was postponed until March 1, 2020. In particular, it will not be possible to import railcars, tramcars, self-unloading railcars, and used railcars into Ukraine from spring next year.
In response, Ukrainian railcar manufacturers said that the postponement of the ban on importation of freight cars that have reached the end of their service lives from Russia into Ukraine until March 1, 2020 would lead to a sharp increase in the imports of such railcars during this period, which would pose the threat of shutdown of Ukrainian railcars manufacturing plants.
It was also reported that some Ukrainian private companies purchased about 4,000 freight cars that had already been written off in Russia in 2018.
