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RZD President Vladimir Yakunin: Third stage of rail reform will go ahead despite crisis.

RZD President Vladimir Yakunin summed up the structural reforms of Russia’s railway transport system carried out to date in a speech at the VII International Conference "Market of Transport Services: Interaction and Partnership" in Moscow, and stressed that the global economic crisis will not prevent the completion of the third stage of reforms. 

"Since the start of structural reforms in Russia, labor productivity in the rail sector has risen by 44%, the speed of train services has risen by 3%, the volume of exported freight has risen by 40%, and the working cost of transportation has declined by 14%. These results have been achieved, in part, thanks to the company’s investment policy, supported at the top level of government," RZD President Vladimir Yakunin said. 

He said Russian Railways will return a profit for 2009, despite having had to cut its investment program from 433 billion to 257 billion rubles, equal to 67% of the company’s actual investments in 2008. In addition, RZD will continue its work to sell assets and create a competitive environment. Currently, a simplified procedure is being developed for coordinating such deals with the government, which will enable the company to react swiftly to investor sentiment and emerging opportunities for efficient sales. All of these measures are being realized in line with the programme for the Structural Reform of Rail Transport. The programme foresees a reduction in the share of RZD carriages in the total number of trains nationwide, including through creating subsidiaries out of the structure of the holding. The work of the international conference "Market of Transport Services: Interaction and Partnership" runs for two days.

It involves Russian government members, State Duma lawmakers, Federation Council members, top managers of Russian Railways and large transport and financial organizations, and representatives of the transport ministries of countries of the CIS, the Baltics, Europe, and Central Asia.