Tuesday, March 28 2017 19:50

ArmInfo.Thanks to extensive preparatory work, negotiations with Georgian and Russian colleagues, the South Caucasus Railway is ready to offer the market a  comprehensive service for the transportation of goods between Armenia  and Russia at a through tariff rate.

Deputy Director General of the South Caucasian Railways CJSC for  Finance and Economics Ilya Kelperis told ArmInfo about this.  According to him, this happened for a number of objective reasons,  since the conditions that allow us to present a competitive offer  have been formed only now. First of all, these are the crisis  phenomena in the region's economy and the decrease in the volume of  cargo transportation, which stimulates competition and leads to the  need for making decisions that are unusual for the period of growth  in traffic volumes. And all market participants understand this well.

Only a comprehensive solution allows to provide competitive  conditions. "And we are extremely grateful for the support and  understanding of the government of the Republic of Armenia, in  particular, to Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan, our shareholder of  OJSC RR, who formed the conditions for expanding the geography of  transportation of products of Armenian producers, to our Georgian  colleagues who provided favorable conditions for the carriage of  goods from Participation ferry crossing. As a result, having redeemed  the ferry's slot-charter, the South Caucasian Railway can now provide  unique conditions for the transportation of goods in the  Armenia-Russia-Armenia communication at a through tariff rate, which  was reduced by more than 2 times to the previous tariff," said  Kelperis.

The Deputy General Director noted that at the moment the cost of  delivering first class cargo (which is stone, building materials,  mineral raw materials, etc.) from Yerevan to Moscow is $ 70 per ton,  to St.  Petersburg $ 75 per ton, To Novosibirsk $ 85 per ton, to  Krasnoyarsk $ 90 per ton, to Khabarovsk $ 110 per ton. By road for  110 dollars per ton cargo is delivered at best only to Moscow. And  from Moscow to Khabarovsk is still almost 9 thousand kilometers. "As  for the relevance of the proposal, we believe that the product will  be quite in demand, given the great opportunities that it opens up  for business", - noted I. Kelperis. First of all, he pointed to the  expansion of the geography of supplies of Armenian goods outside the  Urals, the development of the markets of Siberia and the Far East. "I  think building a house from Armenian tuff on the coast of the Sea of  Japan is no less prestigious than on the coast of Sevan. And we  expect that the large Armenian diaspora in Russia will not leave  undetected the opening prospects, "said the deputy director.

South Caucasus Railways is a wholly owned subsidiary of Russian  Railways and conducts concession management of Armenian railways. The  railway infrastructure of Armenia was transferred to the concession  management of SCR under the agreement signed on February 13, 2008.  The Concession Agreement. The term of the concession management is 30  years with the right of prolongation for another 10 years.