TASS, October 25. Water transport delivered to Yakutia all the due cargo - food and other products, the regional government's press service told reporters.
"All the due cargo has been brought to Yakutia within the navigation," the press service said. "Those are 1 million 290,000 tons of vital cargo, which is 14,000 tons above the plan. The Arctic navigation in the region is over. The authorities continue to control coal transportation along the Lena River for the municipal housing heating services."
Ship owners are returning vessels to the ports, where they will be docked for winter.
"As for the Northern Supplies, we are speaking not only about the shipment of cargo, ordered by the authorities, but also about the cargo for industrial enterprises, for small and medium businesses, that supply goods and food products to the North," the press service quoted Governor Aisen Nikolayev as saying. "Yakutsk and the region's western part for practically six months remain cut off, with the exception for the air transport. Thus, the work on the Northern Supplies' bill, which continues following an order from the country's president, is an important step to have reliable supplies and to improve the living standards for all the people in the region."
The Northern Supplies is a system to ship every year essential goods to about 3 million people. The biggest receiving region is Yakutia, followed by the Krasnoyarsk Region. Sea and river vessels carry cargo to hard-to-reach areas - the cargo is unloaded at port towns, from where later on vehicles deliver products and fuel to final destinations along pressed-snow winter roads.
Earlier, the president ordered the government to draft and present to legislators by March 2023 a bill on the Northern Supplies' coordinator. The government will present its ideas about a sea operator, which will provide the ice fleet on the Northern Sea Route. Another aspect, the president had mentioned, was subsidies for loans borrowed for the Northern Supplies.