| On containers and oil Less than two months have passed since the president of Russian Railways OJSC Gennady Fadeev reported to the public on the company’s work for the first three months of its existence, and last Friday he already presented a new report - based on the results of the work of five months. And although Mr. Fadeev began with the remark that Vladimir Putin pays the closest attention to the development and modernization of the transport complex, the reason for the speech of the head of Russian Railways was, apparently, not the presidential election, but a change in the structure of the government and the emergence of a new minister. As you know, the Ministry of Railways, which has become much thinner after the creation of Russian Railways, has now become part of the Ministry of Transport and Communications, headed by the former manager of Severstaltrans, Igor Levitin.
And now the management of Russian Railways will have to work in new conditions - the pocket ministry (headed in the past by Vadim Morozov, Mr. Fadeev’s right-hand man) no longer exists, and state regulation of the industry is handled by the manager of one of the private operator companies, which, according to the reform, are competitors of Russian Railways and, by the way, express dissatisfaction with the presence of a number of advantages in the state-owned company. At the same time, railway workers pin hopes on Mr. Levitin, who was in charge of transport engineering at Severstaltrans (Russian Railways has a long-term cooperation with the “daughter” of Severstaltrans, the Kolomna Plant), for solving many problems.
On Friday, Gennady Fadeev did not fail to secure the favor of the new government, saying that he assessed the consolidation very positively, and saw nothing wrong with the fact that the Ministry of Railways would become just an agency. The merger, in his opinion, will eliminate barriers between all modes of transport and pursue a more balanced policy. Meanwhile, as Minister of Railways, Mr. Fadeev was known as an ardent opponent of turning the Ministry of Railways into an appendage of the Ministry of Transport. “In my opinion, this can be done no earlier than 2007,” Mr. Fadeev reflected in one of his interviews at the end of 2002. “Only after JSC Russian Railways passes the viability test.” A year later, Mr. Fadeev received the post of president of Russian Railways, and his views changed. "It's an inevitable process," he said last August, estimating the merger time frame at six months.
Now the railway workers are trying their best to show the effectiveness of their work. According to Russian Railways' plans, the profitability of freight transportation will increase from 1% in 2003 to 7% in 2007 and 13% in 2010. At the end of this year, Russian Railways, according to Mr. Fadeev, will show up to 8 billion rubles. profits, which is almost three times more than in 2003 - 2.8 billion rubles. It is planned that in 2005 the profit will amount to 25-26 billion rubles, and in 2006 - about 35 billion rubles.
Gennady Fadeev emphasizes that profits will not grow at the expense of taxpayers. Tariffs, according to the three-year budget plan being developed by the company, will be below the inflation rate in the next three years - in 2004 the increase will be 10%, in 2005 - 8.5%, in 2006 - 7.5%. The main line of income for railway workers is cargo transportation, and maximum efforts will be made in this direction. Firstly, according to Mr. Fadeev, there will be increased attention to innovative types of transportation: container and piggyback (transportation of trailers, etc.), including by combining them with sea and road transport. Russian Railways and the Far Eastern Shipping Company have already agreed to create a joint company with parity participation for the transportation of large-tonnage containers, which, in their opinion, will become the largest player in the world market. Russian Railways intends to cut out intermediaries and reduce costs by servicing customers “door to door” and by creating similar joint ventures with road carriers. Secondly, Mr. Fadeev believes, it is necessary to abandon the regulation of railway tariffs in competitive segments of the transport market, especially in the field of oil transportation. Here Russian Railways are going to be particularly active. “We supplied 2.6 million tons to China, today the request is for 5.6 million, and tomorrow we can transport all 20 million tons of oil. A new oil pipeline for such an amount of oil cannot be built in the next few years,” says Gennady Fadeev. Yana VIKTOROVA |
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