In Q1 2015, the economic downturn and the slowdown in the partners' activities affected the cargo traffic of the South Caucasus Railway (SCR) CJSC, Viktor Rebets, SCR CEO, says in an interview with Golos Armenii.
He says that the company has an experience of resisting the external challenges, maintaining the balance between the budget expenses and revenues and applying resource-saving programs. Rebets touches on the results of the recent financial audit conducted at the SCR by Price Waterhouse Coopers, an authoritative international company.
"The results of the year 2014 demonstrate that all the tasks of the SCR were carried out to a full extent and the company's profit considerably exceeded the amount planned by the Board of Directors. By the way, this enabled the company to reduce the loss accumulated over the past few years", says Rebets. He adds that these positive trends will be continued in 2015.
"So, the statements about the SCR's bankruptcy are artificial and absolutely groundless. Our investment in 2015 will be as much as in 2014 - about 6.5 bln AMD, which meets the investment schedule stipulated by the concession agreement," says Rebets. He says that the company observes the schedule even though the cargo traffic is dropping. In Q1 2015, the cargo traffic fell by almost 15% as compared with Q1 2014. One more factor affecting the cargo traffic is related to the activities of GeoProMining. A year ago it launched a new raw material processing technology, but Rebets says that some uncompleted processes of adjustment works and some other factors do not allow the company to work with the designed capacity, thereby almost halving the transportation of the gold-bearing raw material.
SCR CJSC is a 100% subsidiary of Russian Railways OJSC and the concessional manager of Armenian Railways under the 13 Feb 2008 agreement, which was signed for 30 years but can be prolonged for 10 more years.