Railways loaded about 213,000 grain cars, in which they transported 13.5 million tons of grain and its byproducts (cake, meal), in the period of January-June 2015, an increase of 17% or 2 million tons compared with the corresponding period of 2014, the Interfax Ukraine news agency reports.
According to the press service of the State Railway Administration (Ukrzaliznytsia), 188,300 cars were loaded (with 12 million tons of grain), which is 23.5% more than the quantity in the first half of 2014, out of which 171,500 cars transported export grain (11.3 million tons) to ports.
The total turnaround time of grain cars reduced by 2.75 days to 11.15 days in the first half of the year.
"As of today, the costs of transporting 1 ton of grain (excluding VAT) over the average distance … in inventory grain carriers are UAH 160.4 domestically and UAH 182.88 on export. According to experts, the level of tariffs for transportation of grain products in Ukraine is much lower than in the levels of tariffs in other countries, particularly 33.7% lower than in Russia and 23% lower than in Belarus," Ukrzaliznytsia said.
