The Ukrainian Federation of Employers believes that the Ukrainian engineering and metallurgical industries are capable of meeting the requirements for rails and rolling stock for modernization of the Ukrainian Railways joint-stock company (Ukrzaliznytsia).
The Ukrainian Federation of Employers announced this in a statement, the CFTS portal reports.
The federation urged the government to abandon the plan to purchase rolling stock from Kazakhstan.
According to the federation, the mass media recently reported that a Ukrainian delegation including members of the government visited Kazakhstan a few days ago for talks on purchase of products for modernization of Ukrzaliznytsia. These products include locomotives, rails, railway wheels, and switches.
The federation believes that the Ukrainian engineering and metallurgical industries are capable of meeting the requirement for rails and rolling stock for modernization of Ukrzaliznytsia.
The federation also stressed that Ukrainian manufacturers do not have open access to public procurements in Kazakhstan, where Kazakh enterprises are protected by a 30% price preference in all government tenders.
"The Ukrainian Federation of Employers opposes the use of Ukrainian taxpayers’ money to replenish the budgets of other countries through public procurements while Ukrainians join the ranks of the unemployed instead of being employed and working in enterprises," the federation said in the statement.
The federation appealed to Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal to intervene in the situation and order an end to official negotiations on purchase of metallurgical and engineering products for the Ukrainian railways from Kazakhstan.
In addition, the federation proposed introducing "localization" and "local component" as mandatory criteria for the project for modernization of Ukrzaliznytsia and the "Big Construction" infrastructure project. It also proposed submitting a draft Cabinet of Ministers resolution "On Implementation of a Pilot Project for Procurement of Equipment in the Engineering Industry, using the Non-Price Evaluation Criterion" for consideration at the next government meeting with the aim of adopting it.
In addition, the federation asked the prime minister to facilitate adoption of the draft law No. 3739 "On Amendments to the Law on Public Procurement" to create prerequisites for sustainable development and modernization of the domestic industry.
As the CFTS portal reported earlier, the Ukrmetallurgprom association of metallurgical enterprises has also called on the government to abandon the plan to purchase railway and metallurgical products from Kazakhstan.
