Transport & Logistics representatives gather in the South
VI International Transport Forum "YugTrans-2010” was held on March 18-19, in the village of Kabardinka near Novorossiysk, at "Nadezhda.SPA & Sea Paradise" Hotel. The event has long been a key event in the transport sector of the southern region, and this time was attended by over 150 delegates from Russia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Lithuania and Kazakhstan. There have been 33 reports delivered by the forum participants in these two days over the most urgent issues in the field of transport business.
“YugTrans-2010" forum is focused on "growth points" for the transport and logistics complex of the Azov-Black Sea and Caspian Sea region, troubled by the global economic crisis. The target is realization of large-scale development projects and modernization of transport infrastructure in the region.
The Forum was opened by session of the Transport and Logistics Infrastructure of the Azov-Black Sea and Caspian Regions breakup group. Among those who delivered the report over the topic were Alexander Davidenko, head of the Federal Agency of Sea and River Transport, Yuri Makhoshvili, Minister of Industry and Natural Resources of Astrakhan region, Nikolai Tityukhin, president of Euro-Asian logistics associations, Alexander Melnikov, development director of the Olya Commercial Sea Port.
First construction stage of cargo port in Sochi, partially damaged by the storm in December 2009, will be launched in late March 2010, said Mr. Davydenko. "Upgrading work is almost completed, the first stage of port construction will be put into operation by the end of March," - he said.
The first handling facilities are designed for 2 million tons of cargo. The second phase will be launched in December, when the port will be ready to receive 6.5 million tons of cargo a year.
Head of Rosmorrechflot also reported that in August 2010 a second railroad ferry will start operation between the Bulgarian port of Varna and Russian port Kavkaz. "Railroad ferry with capacity of 50 cars will transfer the most different range of goods, starting with fruits and ending with oil, bypassing the ports of Ukraine", - said Davydenko. Also it is planned to develop road, rail and passenger ferry service to ports in Turkey and Romania.
An important issue highlighted at the conference was grain transportation. It has been the most burning issue for the Krasnodar Territory thus far. A large number of trucks filled with grain, idle at the approach to Novorossiysk, as Sergey Gonenko, CEO of Design, Survey and Research Institute of Maritime Transport NovomorNIIproekt mentioned in his speech.
A new way for the grain export was suggested by Sergei Delz. "To boost the development of transport and terminal infrastructure it is necessary to introduce area-based approach, that has already given a good account of itself in the United States", - he reported to Rusagrotrans.
Agroindustrial complex of Russia sets a major task - to increase the gross grain yield to 135 million tones a year by 2020, and to ensure stable export about 40-50 million tons per year. However, the transportation and terminal facilities do not allow export of more than 25-30 million tons.
Such an approach would establish a self-sufficient production and transport cluster, reduce the burden on the transportation system, reduce the time of the rolling stock turnover, reduce the transportation tariff by reducing the prime cost of transportation, to plan elevators and terminal facilities, to handle and ship the grain cargo during peak periods in a timely manner. "
Grain transportation issues were also highlighted by Vladimir Gerasimenko, CEO of Tuapse Commercial Seaport, and Victor Zelenski, Head of Logistics and Transport Novorossiysk grain terminal. On the second day of the Forum a trip to Novorossiysk grain terminal was arranged.
RZD will invest about 71 billion rubles in the development of rail approaches to ports of the South part of RF by 2015, Eugene Gorlakov reported to the representative of the North Caucasus branch of the company.
"Cargo turnover to the southern ports increases from year to year, it is necessary to develop the infrastructure in this direction. Only in Novorossiysk itself 58 million tons of cargo have been transshipped in 2009 ", - Mr. Gorlakov stressed. According to him, RZD has invested about 11.6 billion rubles in reconstruction of the approaches to the southern ports in 2009, including the port of Kavkaz, from which part of the wagons are transported by ferries to Europe and Turkey.
Railroad topic discussion was resumed by Vladimir Alexandrin, deputy head of the Southern Regional Administration of the Federal Agency of Railway Transport, and Ertas Beysbekov, Deputy Director of the Department of consolidated order establishment and carrying out the transportation of company Kazakhstan Temir Joly (Kazakhstan Railways).
Also, in light of recent events issue of the introduction of GLONASS in the transport area has become a new topic of the Forum. Here the reports on the use of modern satellite equipment in transport industry were made by Vladimir Klimov, executive director of the Association "GLONASS / GNSS-Forum", Andrei Anikin, Project Manager, JSC "Navigation and Information Systems", Olga Ivanova, manager of sales and business development in Russia and CIS Pacific Crest CorporationIt.
Also the Forum addressed the issue of public-private partnership. Within the framework of this topic speech was delivered by Vitaliy Maksimov, Adviser to the Director General for Public-Private Partnerships Rostransmodernizatsiya FSI, and Alexander Glukhov, deputy CEO of TRANSPROEKT.
In addition, the Forum participants discussed the topic of Russian-Turkish cooperation in the field of transport, paying attention to tendency of Customs development and environmental problems of the transport industry.
Based on the report of Forum Organizing Committee