Number Of Railcar Manufacturing Plants In Ukraine Down From 12 To 7 In One Year

The number of railcar manufacturing and repair plants in Ukraine reduced from 12 in 2019 to 7 in the first eight months of 2020, and this negative trend is continuing. 

The heads of railcar manufacturing plants, logistics companies, and carrier companies announced this at a press conference on "Shutdown of the Country's Railcar Manufacturing Plants Today, Bankruptcy of Logistics Companies Tomorrow. We Demand that the Government take Urgent Measures," the CFTS portal reports.

According to the heads of railcar manufacturing plants and logistics companies, only five enterprises sold freight cars in the period of August-September 2020.

In addition, the number of enterprises that sold freight cars more than halved in August 2020, compared with 2019.

The participants in the press conference also stated that enterprises in the Ukrainian railcar manufacturing industry sold 10,182 freight cars in the period of January-August 2019 and only 1,579 in the corresponding period of 2020.

About 190,000 private and state-owned freight cars are currently registered in Ukraine. Of these, about 64,000 have reached the end of their rated service lives.

"In addition, decommissioned freight cars imported from Russia were added to these freight cars. In the period of 2016-2019, 18,000 railcars were imported from the Russian Federation despite the fact that these railways have reached the end of their service lives and their operation in Russia has been prohibited," a participant in the press conference said.

The press conference was attended by the board chairman and director of the Kryukov Railcar Building Works, Maksym Kramarenko; the Kryukov Railcar Building Works’ acting Sales and Marketing Director Yurii Brusnik; Technical Director of the Dniprovahonmash railcar manufacturing plant Oleksandr Zhukov; Director of the Dniprodzerzhynsk steel smelting plant Oleksandr Zakirbaev; General Director of Aurum Group Andrii Zharyi; Director of the TAS-Logistic company Volodymyr Ivaschenko; Deputy Director of Legal Affairs at the First Logistics Company Dmytro Troekurov; Director of Promvagontrans LLC Ivan Skiba.

As the CFTS portal previously reported, the Cabinet of Ministers approved at a meeting on July 15 a draft resolution that imposed a ban on import of railcars previously owned by enterprises resident in the Russian Federation or assigned to the Russian railway administration.