Infrastructure Minister Andrii Pyvovarskyi met with representatives of the Siemens company during a visit to Berlin on 22 October. According to him, the German company is interested in assembling trams and locomotives in Ukraine.
"A successful meeting was held with the leadership of Siemens. The company is interested in entering the Ukrainian market in the area of production of locomotives and trams. We are continuing negotiations at the levels of management and experts regarding the format of such cooperation," Pyvovarskyi wrote on his Facebook page.
The minister also held talks at the German Ministry of Transport on joint work in the areas of roads and railways, as well as on coordinating efforts on development of the Silk Road. Rainer Bomba, the state secretary at Germany’s Federal Ministry of Transport, will visit Ukraine in December. In addition, an exchange of experts is planned with the aim of gaining new experience.
Pyvovarskyi also held a meeting in the German Ministry of Economy to discuss a loan from the KfW bank for restoration of infrastructure in the Donbass industrial region of Ukraine.
As reported, Dmitry Chornenky, the head of the Integrated Transport Systems Department at Siemens Ukraine, recently said in an interview with the CFTS portal that Siemens was not interested in joint production in Ukraine.
The Zaporozhye electric locomotive factory is considered one of the most promising places for production of locomotives in Ukraine jointly with a foreign partner. The authorities have already held negotiations with Skoda and Bombardier on establishment of joint ventures at the Zaporozhye electric locomotive factory. The State Railway Administration (Ukrzaliznytsia) has said that it is ready to guarantee annual purchases of 35-40 locomotives from such a joint venture in the case of its creation.
