Railway freight rates will increase by 15% on 1 May and increase by the average annual rate of 10%. The Ukrzaliznytsia public railway company’s acting Board Chairman Yevhen Kravtsov announced this at a meeting with journalists, the CFTS correspondent reports.
This increase is stipulated in the Ukrzaliznytsia financial plan that the Cabinet of Ministers approved last week.
"Initially, we planned and initiated a 30% tariff increase, which would have given us a large amount for capital investment and repairs, but a slightly smaller plan was approved in the end. Therefore, we are forced to cut spending in many areas apart from social spending," Ukrzaliznytsia’s Financial Director Oleksandr Buzhor said.
As reported, it was proposed that railway freight tariffs should be raised by 30% in two stages. However, shippers actively opposed such increase. As a result, a compromise decision of a one-time increase of 15% was reached.
Ukrzaliznytsia’s financial plan for 2016 provides for spending UAH 11.2 billion on capital investment. The net profit of the company is projected at UAH 96.8 million, its revenue at UAH 74.411 billion, and payments into the budget and special state funds at UAH 11.6 billion.
