“The Ministry of Economy recommended Ukrzaliznytsia to refrain from increasing freight tariffs / photo UNIAN Before initiating an increase in freight tariffs, Ukrzaliznytsia should update its tariff collection, which…”, — write: www.unian.ua
The Ministry of Economy recommended Ukrzaliznytsia to refrain from raising freight tariffs / photo UNIANBefore initiating an increase in cargo tariffs, Ukrzaliznytsia must update its tariff collection, which has not changed since 2009. And this topic should be approached carefully and carefully, taking into account the specifics of the industries. This was announced by the Minister of Economy Oleksiy Sobolev.
“The latest increase in cargo tariffs – by 70% in 2022 – was not supported by the Ministry of Economy. The collection of tariffs, which determines the cost of transportation by cargo classification, has not been revised since 2009. It seems to me that the situation now is so different from 2009 that it is strange to simply increase the price of transportation in general. This does not correspond to reality. We have the fact that due to UZ tariffs, part of the cargo goes from railways to roads. And the Minister of Infrastructure should have said which is easier for them: to maintain roads or to subsidize the railway,” Sobolev remarked.
According to the Minister of Economy, the increase in the cost of transportation can have a negative effect on some industries, for example, the mining and metallurgical complex, up to the shutdown of certain enterprises, which are already suffering today due to the lack of electricity and its higher price than that of European competitors. And the increase in logistics costs becomes an additional burden, and for some industries, this burden – due to the current tariff system – is almost twice as large as for others, emphasizes Sobolev.
“Simply a general increase in tariffs, in our opinion, may not lead to the desired effect. Some part of the cargo will disappear due to the shutdown of enterprises. Part will go to the roads, accordingly, the railway will not receive it either… And we want the cargo to remain and UZ to receive additional funds that will cover the cost of production. If as a result of the increase in tariffs, cargo leaves the railway, it obviously does not make sense, right?” – emphasized the minister.
Earlier, Oleksandr Kalenkov, the president of Ukrmetalurgprom, stated that agricultural producers underpay for their unprofitable railcar transportation from underperforming stations of Ukrzaliznytsia, and in fact force UZ to bear multibillion-dollar losses. And these losses are financed at the expense of an inflated tariff for metallurgists. The problem is that UZ losses from the maintenance of inactive and redundant infrastructure reach 16 billion hryvnias per year, and the main consumer of services of inactive infrastructure are farmers, while metallurgists and miners do not use this infrastructure.
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