In next three or four years almost half of Ukrzaliznytsia's freight car stock should be written off

Around 50% of freight wagons of the Ukrzaliznytsia's rolling stock are to be written off in the next three or four years, Director for Reformation, Law and Assets Policy and a member of the board of public joint-stock company Ukrzaliznytsia Yevhen Kravtsov has said.

"We're conducting a stocktaking and studying the universal car stock, but the technical state of most of them is the following: they cannot be used," he said said after the sector control presentation of the Center for Transport Strategies in Kyiv on Tuesday.

He said that the large part of freight wagons cannot be used in the next one or two years, and Ukrzaliznytsia is to make a decision what to do with the stock that is turning into a pile of scrap metal and what investment policy is to be carried out in the short-term outlook.

"We plan to take these wagons into pieces, not their sale as scrap metal to increase profit for the railways. There is a difference when you sell a wagon as mixed scrap metal and when it is taken into pieces. Some pieces could be sent to our wagon repair plants to repeatedly use them in the production cycle. The rest could be sold depending on the type of metal at different prices," he said.

He said that this would require more funds, but it would bring more money.

"The only thing is left is to receive a decision of the Cabinet of Ministers on the procedure for managing assets, a procedural document being agreed by the ministries now. Then, I hope, this large-scale program will be launched and it will be success," Kravtsov said.

During the presentation representatives of business and authorities discussed a shortage of freight rolling stock. Representatives of business said that there is a surplus of wagons due to a decline in transportation.

Infrastructure Minister Andriy Pyvovarsky said that there is a big difference between the freight rolling stock in paper and the number operable freight cars.

"Now one third of the freight rolling stock could be written off, as these are wagons staying in a ditch," the minister said.