After Russia’s announcement of its withdrawal from the “grain deal”, it is expected that the transportation of grain through the western border crossings by rail will be activated again. “Ukrzaliznytsia” today is more prepared for such a development of events than it was in March-April.
This was told by the deputy director of the department of commercial work of “Ukrzaliznytsia” Valery Tkachev, according to “ProAgro Group” with reference to Latifundist.com.
According to him, recently the transshipment terminals at the western border crossings did not work at full capacity.
“If, for example, in March this year, we initially transferred about 200 wagons of grain per day at the border, then in July we increased the transfer to 560-580 wagons. And this is due to the increase in the number of transshipment terminals at the border and the active work of representatives of the agricultural business. And then in August-September, when the grain agreement started working, the car traffic towards the western border decreased, and the daily transfer of grain was about 500-520 cars. A significant part of grain began to be exported through the seaports of Ukraine,” the expert noted.
Currently, there are 13 freight border crossings with 5 neighboring countries, said Valery Tkachev. But UZ has plans to increase the number of border crossings, namely, the procedures for opening an additional border crossing with Moldova Berezine-Basarabeasca are already being completed.
“At the beginning of October, we had a meeting with representatives of the Moldovan side, where we agreed to organize a joint checkpoint at the Moldovan station Basarabeasca within a month and a half. We are preparing in 1-2 months to open additional cargo crossings Rava-Ruska – Hrebenne (1435 mm gauge) and additional crossings Starzhava-Krostsenko (Poland) and Dilove-Vala-Viseului (Romania),” the expert said.
According to him, even the existing border crossings are not used at full capacity. Therefore, the railway calls on businesses to make the most of all available checkpoints and the available capacity of joints.
“Unfortunately, business unevenly uses the existing border crossings and concentrates only on individual crossings. Look for information, study and go to as many crossings as possible. For its part, UZ plans to continue to provide all the necessary information to exporters,” said Valeriy Tkachev.
