Ukrainian Railways aims to register a carrier company for work in Europe by the end of the year

Transport Logistics Center (TLC) – a branch of Ukrainian Railways (UZ) – will offer shippers a range of forwarding services. In addition, there is an intention to complete the registration of a separate company to enter European markets in this segment by the end of 2023. This was told by the deputy director of UZ commercial work department Valeriy Tkachev, informs Interfax-Ukraine.

According to Tkachev, TLC plans to present a package of forwarding services to cargo owners by the end of this month. Until recently, the branch mainly acted as a railcar operator, providing its own railcar fleet. Currently, it is planned to provide a comprehensive package, which covers ensuring the loading of railcars, weighing control, sealing of railcars, processing of transport documents, protection of cargo along the route, control of cargo transportation, etc.

Currently, the fleet of TLC has about 52,200 freight railcars, and today there is a surplus of them on the Ukrainian market. This encourages the branch to offer a comprehensive service for the organization of cargo transportation for cargo owners at a guaranteed price.

The service will primarily be offered to shippers of grain cargoes, which have a significant share in rail transportation. At the same time, the possibility of offering senders a different range of goods is being considered.

In addition, as Valeriy Tkachev reported, UZ plans to register a new asset by the end of the year – a foreign carrier/operator that will work in EU countries. The decision to create it has already been approved at the level of the Supervisory Board of Ukrainian Railways and the company’s board. At this stage, work continues on the registration of a non-resident company and the preparation of the necessary package of permit documents.

This will enable the company to expand its offer, as shippers will be able to purchase a comprehensive forwarding service for the transportation of goods both within the territory of Ukraine and EU countries in a single window. At the same time, Tkachev reminded that UZ has been providing forwarding services on the domestic market of the country in one form or another for many years.

As expected, Poland will be the first country of operation of the new carrier company from UZ. The issue of launching a similar service in Slovakia and Hungary is also being studied. In addition, according to Valeriy Tkachev, Ukrainian Railways already has a fleet of railcars for the 1435 mm Eurogauge, which operate on the territory of the EU.

As GMK Center reported earlier, in May 2023, Ukrainian Rilaways increased export transportation of ferrous metals by 15% compared to April 2023 – up to 478 thousand tons. Compared to May 2022, the indicator increased by 38.9%. In January-May 2023, UZ reduced export shipments of ferrous metals by 42.8% compared to the same period in 2022 – to 1.95 million tons. Since the beginning of the year, a trend towards an increase in export shipments of steel products has been observed after a significant decline in volumes at the end of 2022.