KRASNOYARSK, October 16 (Itar-Tass) — Charges on freight rail haulage are raised by private wagon owners, said on Sunday president of the RZD Company Vladimir Yakunin at a meeting of representatives of several Siberian territories.
“The infrastructure component in tariffs on rail haulage is regulated by the state, and it is not only stable, but even slipping down,” Yakunin said. “But unregulated part of tariffs is several times higher,» he added.
Delegation heads from five Siberian regions called attention of the RZD Company leader to the unbearable rise in tariffs on rail haulage. For instance head of the Krasnoyarsk Railway (KZD) Vladimir Reingardt said that the volume of haulage slipped by 21.2 percent by 657,000 tonnes over the nine months of 2011 as against the corresponding period of last year, while coal haulage dropped by 4.3 percent and timber – 3.2 percent.
According to Reingardt’s opinion, the reason for the present situation has become uncontrolled spiralling of charges by commercial structures – wagon owners. In Reingold’s words, timber enterprises re-channelled cargoes to other types of transport over rising charges by wagon owners.
“For instance, while a timber enterprise shipped 57 gondola wagons from the Lesosibirsk station in Krasnoyarsk Territory by 2008, now shipments shrank by 40-50 percent in favour of truck transport over charges, increased through the fault of wagon owners. As a result, only 21 percent of ready-made products are shipped by rail,” Reingardt explained.
In turn, Governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory Lev Kuznetsov suggested that the RZD Company should mull over the question on differentiating tariffs on shipping various groups of goods. “For instance the charge of logs should be raised, and on goods with a high degree of processing cut down. Thus, it will be possible, on the one hand, to slash down volumes of export of raw materials from the region, and on the other, to prod producers to build facilities on production of goods with a high added value,” the governor emphasised.
The RZD Company agreed with him and added that the present situation “points to the need for an immediate review and legislative acts for conditions and the order of participation of operator companies in haulage.
“This will help to form conditions for guaranteed provision of consigners with adequate loading resources, above all, for haulage of socially important cargoes and observation of principles (provided for by the structural reform) of the operation of competitive market of services on offering wagons,” Yakunin said with confidence.
The Krasnoyarsk meeting that passed in Krasnoyarsk, on problems of shipping coal and grain was initiated by premier Vladimir Putin. The meeting was attended by the heads of the Krasnoyarsk and Altai territories, the Novosibirsk, Omsk and Kemerovo regions as well as representatives of consigners and rolling stock operators.