The Ukrainian Railways public joint-stock company (Ukrzaliznytsia) was admitted as a member of the “Trans-Caspian International Transport Route” international association on 1 April. The relevant decision was adopted unanimously at a meeting of the association’s board in Baku.
This was announced by Ukrzaliznytsia’s Board Chairman Wojciech Balczun, the CFTS correspondent reports.
"We provided detailed information about the current state of the company, familiarized them with Ukrzaliznytsia's reform strategy for the next five years, and expressed our desire to join such a promising project as the ‘Trans-Caspian International Transport Route’... Having become part of this transport corridor today, we have gained the ability to influence the strategy for its development and positioning," Balczun said.
Ukraine’s process of joining the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route took almost one year: then-director of Ukrzaliznytsia’s cargo transportation and logistics department Ivan Fedorko signed the protocol on Ukraine's entry into the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route on behalf of Ukrzaliznytsia in Tbilisi on May 17, 2016.
At the same time, agreement agreement was reached to reduce the complex rate for transportation of a 40-foot equivalent container (FEU) from the Izov station to the border with China (Dostyk) from USD 5,559 to USD 3,980.
Meanwhile, the trial run of a container train on the Ukraine-Georgia-Azerbaijan-Kazakhstan-China route that the Ministry of Infrastructure and Ukrzaliznytsia launched in early 2016 remains the only one by Ukraine on the Trans-Caspian route.
As the CFTS earlier reported, the Polish broad-gauge railway operator, PKP LHS, has become a member of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route.
